Initial thoughts of the book were bland and unexciting but how wrong can I be This novel was packed with everything to do with families , divorces ,new relationships ,illness and friendship , arguments , drugs ,crime and a father and sons failed relationship . The main character Johnny MacKinnon and his troubled son Corran shows a scottish stubbornness that wants you to just bang their heads together . Johnny married to second wife Pauline and together ran her families ice factory which was experiencing some ongoing money problems and to top it all Johnny was booked in for life threatening surgery . The characters although not always likeable were easy to relate to as the modern family life and a great gossip read.