Read the opening to Alan Trotter’s hugely imaginative debut novel, Muscle.

In a hard-boiled city of crooks, grifts and rackets lurk a pair of toughs: Box and _____. They’re the kind of men capable of extracting apologies and reparations, of teaching you a chilling lesson. They seldom think twice, and ask very few questions. Read this extract, which begins with the first encounter of the soon-to-be partners, when _____ is thrown from a car and lands, somersaulting, at the feet of Box.