In his first short-story collection since The Acid House, Irvine Welsh sets us five tricky questions. n Rattlesnakes how do three young Americans find themselves lost in the desert, and why does one find himself performing fellatio on another while being watched by the bare-breasted Madeline and two armed Mexicans? ho is the mysterious Korean chef who has moved upstairs to Chicago socialite Kendra Cross, in The D.O.G.S. of Lincoln Park , and what does he have to do with the disappearance of her faithful pooch Toto? n the title story, can Mickey Baker an ex-pat English bar-owner ducking and diving on the Costa Brava manage to keep all his balls in the air- maintaining his barmaid Teresa s body weight at the sexual maximum while attending to the youthful Persephone and dodging his persistent ex-wife and a pair of Spanish gangsters? y what train of events does Raymond Wilson Butler, writing a biography of a legendary US film director in Miss Arizona come to end up as a piece of movie memorabilia? nd how, in the novella The Kingdom of Fife will Jason King diminutive ex-trainee jockey and Subbuteo star of Cowdenbeath fare in the world of middle-class female equ

Author Biography

Irvine Welsh is the author of eight previous works of fiction, most recently The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs. He lives in Dublin.