Tiger Bay, 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 beautiful Mary. Maybe, Frankie's luck is about to change. Ten years later, with a mass of debts, five daughters and another child on the way, Frankie lays one more bet on the cards. This time it has to be a boy. But it was not to be a boy. And now everyone has to hide - Frankie from Joe and the syndicate, Mary from the rent man, the daughters from their father. Even the newborn Delores is hidden in a seaman's chest. Out of Frankie's sight, but not out of danger. In compelling detail Trezza Azzopardi describes a world rarely seen in fiction. Through the eyes of Delores Gauci, she reveals the Welsh underworld of the sixties - the cafes and bars, the crumbling housing, the gambling rooms - and the secrets that destroy a family. Trezza Azzopardi is a rare new talent in contemporary fiction. The Hiding Place is an astonishing debut. (2000)

TREZZA AZZOPARDI is the critically acclaimed author of The Hiding Place, which won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and longlisted for the Orange Prize and the Guardian First Book Award, and Remember Me, which was shortlisted for the Welsh Book of the Year. Born in Cardiff, Wales, she is a graduate of the Creative Writing School at the University of East Anglia. She lives in Norfolk, England.

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