This is a staggeringly awful book. Apparently it is impossible to award less than one star, but this book deserves zero. I couldn't escape the feeling that it had been put together to cash in on the author's popularity and to sell the film rights. The characters were caricatures, utterly unbelievable; the dialogue made "Crossroads" seem like Shakespeare and the research and editing were shoddy. Neither my wife or I could work out at first what a "salapex" was - then it dawned that the author meant to say "salopettes". It is true that we could not put it down - it exercised a dreadful fascination, like a car accident happening in slow motion.