ABOUT
THE BOOK

Tiger Bay, Cardiff, 1948. Frank Gauci steps off the Callisto into the coldest winter ever, clutching a cardboard suitcase. It’s all he has until he finds a ruby ring, Joe Medora and Mary. With his best friend Salvatore he opens the doors of the Moonlight Café and life seems good; sweet music, hot food, beautiful girls and gambling. But luck becomes a stranger to Frankie. With a mass of debts, five daughters and another child on the way, he gambles all and so begins the chain of events which will haunt his family for forty years. Through the eyes of Dolores, the Gaucis’ youngest daughter, we see the underworld of Cardiff in the sixties, the Maltese immigrant community, cafes, bars, crumbling estates, gaming rooms and the secrets that destroy a family.