Brixton, twenty years after the race riots. Bricky teenager Dennis Huggins drifts into the easy, dangerous life of the shotta - or drug dealer - an discovers that, hard as the struggle for respect on the streets is, the struggle for love is harder still. At least Dennis's parents are looking out for him. For his dirt poor best friend Noel, the mean streets are a welcome release from the chaos of life at home.<BR>Wheatle evokes the temptations of the thug life for young black men growing up in London's Dirty South in a fast, compelling novel that offers no easy answers, but refuses to shy away from asking difficult questions.