It would be too glib to say that Jim Brown's first novel is Holden Caulfield goes trainspotting in Cannery Row but the first person narrative is put to good effect as the main character, Ricky, walks us through the often funny, sometimes violent and frequently trite day to day life in small town, provincial seaside England. Expressed in a tight and almost at times, poetic prose the story is based on his time in a town on the south east coast in the late 1960s, Brown captures the mood of that period when drugs and sex and rock and roll were de rigueur but transient and, in the main, unfulfilling. One suspects there's a lot more where this comes from and here's hoping that the author taps that deep well of recall and imagination again and again.