Missy

When a brilliant, award-winning Scottish playwright produces a first novel, you don't expect to be recommending it as a perfect beach read...Funny and exhilarating - Moll Flanders on drugs * The Times * Narrated by one of the more luminous characters in recent fiction * Guardian * A gorgeously sassy opening, it is surprising how winning, and how powerful, the voice of Dol McQueen, 19th-century American ""flash-girl"" actually is... Hannan has traversed the limits of history and given us a thoroughly modern woman * Independent * Hannan is comparable to no playwright working today so much as the Renaissance masters. He has a density of expression, a control of populous scenes, a sense of dramatic development and a sheer verve which few writers, living or dead, can touch * Sunday Times * An action-packed page-turner...riveting * Scotland on Sunday * Hannan mixes Mark Twain's yarn capacity with the primal qualities of Cormac McCarthy and Flannery O'Connor * Big Issue * Chris Hannan deftly mixes adventure and redemption with the gritty reality of the frontier and flips Wild West assumptions on their behind. Recommended * Ladies First * Stands with the best of contemporary historical fiction...you can practically taste the rotgut and feel the sawdust under your boots. Missy is a spectacular debut: the West has never been this wild. * http://maxdunbar.wordpress.com * Treating ourselves to sex, drugs and murder as we hang the do-not-disturb sign on the door and settle down on the comfiest sofa with playwright Chris Hanna's debut 'Missy' (due out in pb from Vintage). Who knew the Wild West could be so much fun? -- This Week We’re… * Herald Magazine * Taut and credible [dialogue]...I have sat on the judging panels of two novel prizes, and I have to say that this book is far better written than many of the efforts I had to wade through. I would like to congratulate the author on a fine piece of work, and look forward to reading his next offering. -- Guy Fraser-Sampson * www.pursewarden.blogspot.com *