A rowdy, exuberant, badly behaved blast of an adventure, Missy begins in 1862 with Dol McQueen, nineteen-year-old flash girl and opium user, heading for a boom town in the American West. On the way she prevents a man from hanging himself only to discover he is a murderous pimp.

When he turns up later at the saloon where she has found work with some stolen goods he wants her to hide, Dol grabs the chance to start a new life and takes off into the wilderness with the loot and all hell in pursuit. Her alcoholic mother is an added burden on the mad, epic journey: can Dol save herself, her mother and their poisonous relationship?

Like her literary predecessors, Becky Sharpe and Moll Flanders, Dol is a flawed but irresistible anti-heroine, and Missy is an astounding debut.

Chris Hannan

'An action-packed page-turner...riveting' Scotland on Sunday

Dol McQueen, an irrepressible, opium-addicted 'flash-girl' from the Wild West is headed east for new adventures when she stops to saves 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.

'A gorgeously sassy opening, it is surprising how winning, and how powerful, the voice of Dol McQueen, 19th-century American "flash-girl" actually is... Hannan has traversed the limits of history and given us a thoroughly modern woman' Independent