Ever since childhood Mickey Dalloway has had a gift for mimicry. Now, in the mid-1990s, he’s a talented but deluded artist hovering on the peripheries of the London art scene and getting deeper into an obsessive, doomed love affair with fellow artist, Audrey.

But Audrey’s hidden motives are ruthless and ultimately self-destructive, and, as the Young British Art movement and the dawning of Brit Pop swing into focus, Mickey finds himself caught up in a scam that will have disastrous consequences.

Interweaving real and imaginary events and characters from an array of pop cultural sources, Mickey The Mimic raises serious questions about the concepts of originality in art, the value of art and the ownership of ideas. Its neo-noir narrative of black comedy, casual violence and duplicity mirrors the works of writers such as Charles Willeford, David Goodis and James Sallis.

Kirk Lake