Life is all about perception and perception is everything. This book revolves primarily around the lives of an extended Essex family. Extended to include work colleagues, members of the ‘gang’ and others. Extended to include friends, both male and female. Aah! Friends. True friends, false friends, old friends, new friends, if there are such things. You may quickly realise that the prima famiglia, the Bolds, are criminals. Propaaah villuns! And you would be right. Criminals, bank managers, doctors, accountants, even solicitors. Hold on, you say, what have criminals to do with bankie, the doc, the bean counter and the lowest of the low? Everything! For there is seldom such a thing as a ‘criminal’. Congratulations, Mrs Scumbag, it’s a criminal and will carry on the family traditions for year upon year of happy blagging! No, I don’t think so. Dean Bold, for example, our anti-hero, is the owner of a haulage company. He lives with his wife and family in Canvey Island, as do lots of other people. He has a mortgage, school fees to pay and drives a car. Well, three cars to be precise. His wife, Gina, owns a beauty salon. Through which he launders a little money. Not much, but some. For most of Dean Anthony Bold’s life, he just does stuff. Goes to the pub, goes to work, goes home. Scenes move from Canvey Island to the Costa Blanca, to the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in north Africa, to Venezuela and the home of one of South America’s wealthiest and most ruthless cocaine barons. Links are maintained by a semi-feral Spanish heiress whose hunger for excitement and wealth is matched only by her sexual appetite. There are links to the IRA and several other branches of international crime.
This book contains episodes of what Dean does. He laughs, he cries, he loves, he drives, he snorts coke, he beats people half to death, he makes millions, he goes to bed. He sleeps, eats, breathes, farts, walks and wanks. Just like everyone else.
We are all dirtbags. Some of us are bigger dirtbags than others.
But we ALL shop at Tescos.
And we all die.