'WE'RE WINNERS, RIGHT? SO NOBODY CAN STOP US.' Norah Toomey and Carole Joseph have always been losers – thrown together by chance in a seedy psychiatric hospital – until Carole wins a holiday for two in Las Vegas. They take wing together: eighteen-year-old Carole, with her seesaw moods and explosive sexuality, egging on the shy, unworldly Norah, whose only break from a lifetime of institutions has been the annual day-trip to Littlehampton. But Las Vegas isn't Littlehampton, as these two innocents discover to their cost as they are plunged into a world of strippers and gamblers, brothels and crime. The pair are both dazzled and duped by America's glitziest – and saddest – hot-spot, where sex-shows throb with phoney passion, Godmen tout for cash, and Lady Luck rules and ruins lives. Perriam's probing exploration of an extraordinary relationship, and of the sin and shame of the city which seeds it, displays all the rich uncensored gusto and exuberant humour which have established her as exceptional among contemporary writers. 'Religion and sex, stirred together by an uninhibited hand, cannot fail to make a heady brew. Written with great energy and verve, this is a deeply felt and vastly entertaining exercise'DAILY TELEGRAPH 'Both poignant and funny. We get a wonderfully balanced bird's-eye view of the tawdry, neon world of Vegas. Fast, outrageous and finally very moving, 'Sin City' really is one of Perriam's best'WOMAN'S JOURNAL 'The experience of reading 'Sin City' is like… finding yourself on a roller-coaster swooping up and down. This effect is precisely right for the book. The operator/author stays in charge – indeed accomplishes changes and transformations for both her women characters. It's loopy, touching and my teeth were clenched'GUARDIAN