Set against a background of Hollywood and the Mafia in the fifties, this novel, wildly funny in places, shockingly violent in others, centres on Honey and Sonny Bunn, a mother and son with a pathological hatred of each other. Honey is a nightclub entertainer, coarse, bloated and sexually rampant; and Sonny a manipulative young psychopath, dazzlingly beautiful and corrupt. Surrounding these two central figures is a host of marvellously realised characters - Sylvano Mastrioni, a ruthless crime lord with a penchant for young boys; Thomas Calvino, Honey's sadistic Mafioso lover; Tiny Templar, a diminutive movie star steeped in depravity; Harry Finn, a self-pitying comic unable to come to terms with his wife's horrific suicide; Jessica and Henry Lansbury, pillars of the community with a terrible secret. And then there's Sonny's pampered pet - a large ginger rat that will eat just about anything...