"When Martin spoke afresh, he sounded like someone Steve had heard from the doorway of the bookmakers. Go on then: heads... " And so a matter of some consequence is settled on the toss of a coin. For Steve, gambling on the outcome of a cricket match, having a flutter on the horses, trying his luck on scratch cards, even playing virtual roulette, are nothing daunting. But then Steve is only sixteen years old, and doesnt have anything much to lose.
For his stepfather Martin, who has mortgaged the roof over the familys head to underwrite his latest business enterprise, the stakes are considerably higher, however.
Chancing It is set in a northern city undergoing radical change. Its all-too-human characters move to the music of their speech and of their compulsions, while being convinced, some of them, that what they move to is a music altogether different, and altogether more mysterious.