S  I  N    C  I  T  Y

"We're winners, right? So nobody can stop us."

Norah Toomey and Carole Joseph have always
been losers - thrown together by chance in a
seedy psychiatric hospital - until Carole wins a
holiday for two in Las Vegas. They take wing
together: eighteen-year-old Carole, with her
seesaw moods and explosive sexuality,
egging on the shy, unworldly Norah,
whose only break from a lifetime of
institutions has been the annual
day trip to Littlehampton.


But Las Vegas isn't Littlehampton, as these two
innocents discover to their cost as they are plunged
into a world of strippers and gamblers, brothels and
crime. The pair are both dazzled and duped by America's
glitziest - and saddest - hot-spot, where sex-shows
throb with phoney passion, Godmen tout for cash, and
Lady Luck rules and ruins lives.

Carole seeks to win at romance as well as at roulette,
but her wedding plans go disastrously awry and she
lands up working in a whorehouse in Nevada, while poor
confused Norah settles for marriage to St Joseph.

The experience of reading Sin City is like
finding yourself on a roller-coaster swooping
up and down. This effect is precisely right for
the book. The operator/author stays in charge
- indeed accomplishes changes and transformations
for both her women characters. It's loopy,
touching and my teeth were clenched.
Guardian

Religion and sex, stirred together by an uninhibited
hand, cannot fail to make a heady brew. Written
with great energy and verve, this is a deeply felt
and vastly entertaining exercise.
Daily Telegraph

Touching, funny and unblushingly outrageous. Essential
reading for Perriam fans. My eyes were out on stalks!
Norah Toomey is an unworldly middle-aged lady with a
mild case of religious mania; Carole Joseph is a tough
teenager interested in sex, money and a good time.
Miraculously, Ms Perriam makes their affectionate
relationship entirely convincing.
Standard

"To research Sin City I spent a memorable Christmas in Las Vegas, where it was very much business as usual - the casinos and brothels do a roaring trade, even on Christmas Day. I was lucky enough to meet a famous poker player, who explained the mysteries of gambling, and I was even allowed behind the scenes at a brothel - quite an experience for a convent girl! In fact, I realised there were certain similarities between  a brothel and a convent: both are single-sex communities, run by one dominant female - the Madame or the Reverend Mother - and composed of unconventional women who deliberately choose a role outside normal society and need a special strength to survive at all."