There are certain people who have added immeasurably to the quality of my life: loving parents, my wife Christine and my four children, teachers with shining eyes, my editor at Penguin, and many more. And then there are writers like Steve Smith, who has delighted and entertained me with his stories of life as a criminal lawyer in a northern industrial town.
At a time when the publishing world is flooded with misery memoirs, it is refreshing to find books which lift the spirit and make the reader laugh out loud. And it is important to have books which make us laugh out loud, for laughter, the psychologists tell us, is good for us; increases our immunity to illness, improves sleep and enhances our lives. Steve Smith's books certainly do.
These aren't merely collections of funny tales: there is depth and quality to the writing. Here is an author who had blended hilarious anecdote with the most poignant and sometimes quite heart–rending descriptions of life on the wrong side of the law. He has peopled his vividly realised books with a rich tapestry of compelling characters – the incompetent, the foolish, the pathetic, the cruel, the vulnerable and the downright bizarre – all of whom are brought to life in richly comic and sometimes tragic situations.
Gervase Phinn
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