'For this, his fifth novel, Michael Cannon pits compassion and generosity against self-righteousness and fanaticism in a devoutly Catholic town, where the arrival of an alcoholic father and his twin children raises tensions to breaking point... When the occasion demands Cannon can inject a wonderfully sardonic tone to his prose... Cannon has followed up four well-received novels with a thoughtful and humane celebration of that human instinct to choose compassion and conscience over rules and rituals, even when - for us faltering, mistake-prone humans - that can be the hardest path of all.' Sunday Herald

Michael Cannon was born and brought up in the West of Scotland and worked variously as a tax officer, oil worker and Kibbutz labourer before returning to higher education to study literature. He now works for the University of Strathclyde. His debut novel The Borough was published in 1995 and A Conspiracy of Hope followed in 1996, both published by Serpent's Tail. His novel Lachlan's War was published in 2006 by Viking to much acclaim. His fourth novel, Four New Word for Love, was published by Freight in 2013. He lives on the south side of Glasgow with his wife and children.