Winner of the Baileys' Women's Prize for Fiction 2016 and the Desmond Elliott Prize 2016. We all do stupid things when we're kids. Ryan Cusack has grown up faster than most – as the oldest of six siblings with a deceased mother and an alcoholic father, there's no other choice. And no one says Ryan is stupid. Not even behind his back. It's the people around him who are the problem: the gangster who uses his father as a "cleaner," the neighbor who claims she wants to help but may want more than that, and the prostitute searching for the man she never would have missed until he vanished without a trace one night. The only one on Ryan's side is his girlfriend Karine. When he risks it all, he is completely alone. But the truth is, you only know your own strength when you need it.