DEATH OF COOL, THE

by Pollock, Alan

At the centre of Alan Pollock’s satirical black comedy is Switch, a charismatic graduate who makes a substantial living from large-scale benefit fraud. With the help of two hangers-on, the would-be club DJ Richie and Tara, an aspiring actress, Switch has assumed a variety of identities up and down the country. With regimental planning effective as clockwork, he aims to be the greatest fraudster of his generation despite the misgivings of his best friend Lisa, who rightly suspects that his scheming can’t last forever. This heady mix quickly reaches boiling point with the arrival of Terry Newman, a builder who has been working abroad. Switch has been using his identity in the mistaken belief that he is dead, but a very much alive Newman wants vengeance. His attempt to blackmail Switch and the others leads to a white-knuckle ride through the underside of contemporary Britain in an age of scams, schemes adn deception.