A story about poignant and comic routes out of banality … the prose is refreshing, surprising and comfortable in its own lucid, unpretentious skin

— Times Literary Supplement

The will-sapping tedium of life as a Walsall Reflector hack has given Dave “Ichabod” McVane a serious thirst for the devil’s juice. Now, after years of debauchery, the booze has bitten back: what feels like a rhinoceros is buffeting its way through his stomach. He wakes cathetered and bed-bound among deranged “regulars” in a hospital with a terrifyingly high mortality rate. And if that wasn’t bad enough, a figure from a past he’d rather forget revisits . . . to leave Dave reeling, raddled with paranoia and facing a scalpel-happy surgeon.

Perhaps it’s time to reflect on how he got in such a state. Was it the Walsall Academy of New Knowledge or the sideline in “specialist” leatherwork? Or was it having a Smiths fan called Ringo for a best friend, and hookers for next-door-neighbours? Is closing time being called once and for all, or will the pall of his disillusionment suddenly lift?

This is the most fun I’ve had all year – fast paced, witty, and surprisingly moving. Great fun from a distinctive Midlands voice – Paul McDonald has done the impossible: he’s made Walsall funny

— Patrick Thompson