It’s 1983 and two ex-campus drug dealers are locked in a feud of mysterious origin. Chilly Pads has the upper hand and the money, while Andy has the charisma and the girls. But when Andy sets up a disastrous deal with IRA gangsters, he’s paid in fake dollars – and, much to Pads’ delight, needs his help financing a scam to recoup his money.

Coventry 1983. As the city skanks to the 2 Tone beat, so another multicultural youth enterprise gets under way, uniting wildly divergent characters looking to smash the system and get rich quick on the music’s narcotic spur: hashish . . . Comical, sometimes profound, this is a highly original debut

— Guardian

Mez Packer has triumphantly pulled off the trick of writing across the gender divide—each of her male characters is complex and convincing . . . The energy of the writing and the darkness of the story are reminiscent of Martin Amis—but better plotted

— Independent on Sunday

Packer lovingly evokes Coventry in the 1980s, a city on the point of disintegration. She has a gift for quirky conversational description and social satire – a promising new novelist

— Times Literary Supplement

Rattles along wonderfully. Packer writes crisply about a world she clearly knows. Like any good thriller, it’s all about voyage, not destination. This one’s worth travelling on

— The Word

Engaging and very innovative

— Howard Marks

The headlong narrative of Among Thieves brilliantly evokes the drug-fuelled 2 Tone madness of 1980s Coventry

— Graham Joyce