Hood Rat [Paperback]

"A gripping, terrifying exposure of a much-discussed - but never explained - part of Britain. A must-read for anyone who wants to understand our deeply fractured society." --Owen Jones, author of CHAVS

`Gavin Knight's Hood Rat is an unflinching account of life and
death in the sink estates of Britain. It penetrates environments
that most of us only glimpse in local news reports, and addresses
the kind of people that we fear encountering on a dark night or,
indeed, a bright afternoon.' --Observer

`The British Wire' --BBC Radio 5 Live

`In focusing on three cities, Knight tries to highlight major issues
in teen criminality: drug addicted, absent or ineffectual parenting,
gun culture, the profit motive and gangster chic. His research
is impressive. He spent two years embedded with the police in
these cities, and uncovers the sort of stories that never make
the news. A Somalian child soldier who relives the civil war on
the streets of London, Glaswegian gang fights in Easterhouse,
and homeless Sikh heroin addicts living in bin sheds . . . Hood Rat
does raise some deeply troubling and interesting questions.' --Scotsman

`Gavin Knight spent two years with anti-gang units in London,
Manchester and Glasgow in order to write his gripping new
book'
--Esquire

`The book is a step forward for British true-crime.' --3AM

`An excellent and unputdownable true-crime book . . . Names may
be changed but everything else here is true. And in much the
same way Wire creator David Simon and Roberto "Gomorrah"
Saviano lifted the lid on Baltimore and Naples, so Knight (embedded
with undercover police and underworld contacts for years)
employs a series of interlocking, novelistic narratives to present
an immediate and immersive study of brutalised youth from
London to Glasgow "who'll live and die in a square mile", doomed
by peer-pressure - or their own treacherous postcode. Though
remaining profoundly political, there are no pat solutions or
easy analyses on offer - just shocking stories and statistics . . . and
perhaps a shard of hope too.'
--Word Magazine

`A rollicking tale' --Big Issue in the North

`In its approach and style, Gavin Knight's Hood Rat follows the
New Journalism that revolutionised the form in the 1960s . . . This
book is not only a disturbing, significant portrait of the present,
but a snapshot of Britain's future if this trend continues to escalate
. . . The pace of Hood Rat is spurred on by Knight's economy of
detail and staccato sentences, which thankfully avoid the slang
and colloquialisms found on the lips of those he encounters. His
experience crosses two worlds: he does not report simply on the gangs, but also on those entrusted with the powers to bring about
justice and change.' --Literary Review

`Its pace is thrillerish and there are passages of undeniable
tension.' --Sunday Times

`A challenging read . . . The author vividly shows a world where
drugs hook young boys into gangs, where posturing and "respect"
is all, so one gang murder escalates into revenge killings on both
sides.' --We Love This Book

`If more non-fiction books were like this I'd be reading more
of them but for now I'll just eagerly await Gavin Knight's next
project.'
--Ric's Reviews

BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK SHORTLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE 2012 SHORTLISTED FOR THE CRIME WRITERS ASSOCIATION NON-FICTION DAGGER AWARD ‘THE MOST IMPORTANT CRIME STORY OF THE DECADE’ Scottish Mail Manchester. London. Glasgow. In the summer of 2011 violence erupted in our inner cities and many blamed gang culture. But is the truth so simple? Hood Rat tells the human stories that the media miss: of young men who have fallen through the system, and of one young woman with a vision for change. ‘Unflinching. It penetrates environments that most of us only ever glimpse’ Observer ‘Impressive. Knight uncovers the sort of stories that never make the news’ Scotsman ‘This British sensation is a must. Disturbingly compelling’ Marie Claire ‘A gripping novelistic immersion in the lives of young criminals’ Louis Theroux ‘The British Wire’ BBC Radio 5 Live