Dol McQueen, an irrepressible, opium-addicted 'flash-girl' from the Wild West is headed east for new adventures when she stops to save a man from killing himself, only to discover he is a murderous pimp who really didn't want to be rescued. When the pimp then turns up at the saloon bar where she and her friends have found work - and plenty more - with a crate of stolen opium he wants her to hide, Dol sees a chance to change her life for good and goes on the run into the American wilderness. But the pimp is on her tail, along with a gang of mobsters and her crazy, self-obsessed mother; can Dol save her friends, her mother, and herself? Like her literary predecessors, Becky Sharpe and Moll Flanders, Dol is a flawed but irresistible anti-heroine, and "Missy" is an astounding debut.

Author Biography

Missy is the first novel by playwright Chris Hannan. Born in Clydebank, Scotland, son of a shipyard worker and a teacher, Chris graduated with a first-class honours degree from Oxford University before going to work with homeless people in a Glasgow night-shelter. His award-winning plays include Shining Souls, The Evil Doers, Elizabeth Gordon Quinn and The Baby; and have been staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre of Scotland and Sir Peter Hall at the Old Vic. In 2001/02 he was Judith E. Wilson Visiting Fellow in Drama at the University of Cambridge. He lives in Edinburgh.