Big Spender Author:John McCabe From the acclaimed author of Snakeskin, Paper and Stickleback comes a story about a safety inspector who falls in love with a girl from the fireworks factory. — Jake Cooper is a safety inspector. He and his colleague, Roger, are connoisseurs of that most maligned of art forms, the safety instructional video. Roger has even em... more »braced the lifestyle to the extent of wearing a motorbike helmet when he drives his Volvo. Then Jake’s uncle Norbert dies. Norbert has made cheapness his art form, to the extent of devising a chart to show when he should buy his round of drinks in order to maximize his lager-to-expenditure ratio, so, to be honest, he’s not much missed. Strange that the local tramp disappeared around the same time though.
Jake, who has already been made uneasy by his girlfriend’s strange behaviour -- she’s being too nice -- knows he really has problems when people from the past he thought he’d escaped, get in touch again. And, just when he thinks life can’t get any more treacherous, he meets a woman who shows him that the most hazardous thing we are ever likely to do, is fall in love.« less