4am

Nina de la Mer

Cal and Manny are squaddies, best mates and well into Hamburg’s 90s rave scene and all that it involves. They tell us their stories in turn and it soon becomes clear that the party can’t last forever. The dialogue is good, the characters believable and there’s humour within the worrying subject matter. I couldn’t wait to find out how things turned out and raced through the book to the end

Extract

Seems like everyone’s pure glaikit wi drugs, the night, there’s that many weirdos and sad fucks about: E casualties shivering and vomiting in the draughty corridors; crusties wi acid house bandanas shrieking like banshees on the dance flair; square-peg teenaged Germans gawping at the freak show. The soundtrack tae this sorry sight is the worse kind of ear-bleeding techno an aw – heavy, dirgy, and – what’s it? Monotonous. We’re taking this all in, and, for once, me, Jonesy and Iain are a trio of perfect agreement – the night’s gonna be a bag of shite.

Parallels