'"Hundreds of famous brains," beamed the newsgirl ... "What. A. Mess."' Even Atom, a detective who harasses anyone who comes near him, wants to get to the bottom of what happened on the night the City Brain Facility blew up.

Blince, Benny, mobster Eddie Thermidor and the other denizens of Beerlight wonder what the hell he's doing. Bugs, brain-stealing and inevitable thermonuclear disaster are all given due consideration in this close-wired novel, where even the president's penchant for bestiality comes with little surprise.

There's no such thing as a normal angle – it's just not done that way.

'A jaw-droppingly dark and funny work'

Guardian