A Blues for Shindig

Shindig didn't know it but her reputation with the boys of Soho had been made that day. It was one of those occasions when time had gone into free fall, everyone watched as he arced gracefully through the air and fell to the floor. He was quickly dispatched out into the courtyard. Sharks would discover him soon. The Rendezvous Club is a squalid little gaff off a slippery courtyard. Here, you'll always find a gathering of the 'boys' of Soho. These are men's men; mostly one syllable names: Vic, Stan or Reg, and definitely not how you would expect gangsters to look - no Bogarts or Greenstreets here. From the 'meat rack' in the Dilly to Joe Lyons Corner House at Coventry Street or the Sunset Club on Carnaby Street, it is startling how these places fit in and complement deviant life and villainy. Soho, in the 1950s, was a centre for misfits and petty criminals. Surrounded by this unusual brew of characters, Shindig seems to fit right in. That is until things change for the bosses up west and the powers look to be shifting in Soho's underworld... Jake Arnott meets Nell Dunn in this gritty accolade to Soho and to deviants of every ilk. "Critical Mass" says: A fantastically gritty read - unputdownable!