The Dirty South

Brixton, twenty years after the race riots. Teenager Dennis Huggins drifts into the easy, dangerous life of the shotta - or drug dealer - and discovers that, hard as the struggle for respect on the streets is, the struggle for love is harder still. At least Dennis has involved parents looking out for him; too many of his friends drift through life with no positive influences or moral code; their only ''family'' their fellow dealers. Wheatle brilliantly evokes the temptations of the thug life for young black men growing up in London''s ''Dirty South'' - this is a fast, compelling novel that offers no easy answers, but refuses to shy away from asking the difficult questions.