Nick Santini's life is all sleight of hand and tricks of the light. He has made what could be a very good living from his talent, though it's hard to tell, because his manager, Tony, is always very cagey about what's in the bank. And his real talent is not, as his audiences believe, speaking to dead people. It's all very shaky ground and it's been even shakier since his TV show was cancelled and Tony decided that what his career really needed was a love story. Paying an almost-been pop star to pose as his girlfriend should have worked out ok, but it looks like luck is no longer on their side, not least because no one seems to recognise her. Santini's job is to lie and lie well. Yet even the washed-up 23-year-old struggles to cope with events as his life steadily unravels. Neil Forsyth's novel is a darkly comic investigation of the lower strata of this world, the next and Z list celebrity.