When a brilliant, award-winning Scottish playwright produces a first novel, you don't expect to be recommending it as a perfect beach read...Funny and exhilarating - Moll Flanders on drugs

Narrated by one of the more luminous characters in recent fiction

A gorgeously sassy opening, it is surprising how winning, and how powerful, the voice of Dol McQueen, 19th-century American "flash-girl" actually is... Hannan has traversed the limits of history and given us a thoroughly modern woman

Hannan is comparable to no playwright working today so much as the Renaissance masters. He has a density of expression, a control of populous scenes, a sense of dramatic development and a sheer verve which few writers, living or dead, can touch

An action-packed page-turner...riveting

Hannan mixes Mark Twain's yarn capacity with the primal qualities of Cormac McCarthy and Flannery O'Connor

Chris Hannan deftly mixes adventure and redemption with the gritty reality of the frontier and flips Wild West assumptions on their behind. Recommended

Stands with the best of contemporary historical fiction...you can practically taste the rotgut and feel the sawdust under your boots. Missy is a spectacular debut: the West has never been this wild.

Treating ourselves to sex, drugs and murder as we hang the do-not-disturb sign on the door and settle down on the comfiest sofa with playwright Chris Hanna's debut 'Missy' (due out in pb from Vintage). Who knew the Wild West could be so much fun?

Taut and credible [dialogue]...I have sat on the judging panels of two novel prizes, and I have to say that this book is far better written than many of the efforts I had to wade through. I would like to congratulate the author on a fine piece of work, and look forward to reading his next offering.

Sex, drugs and barroom brawls - only an ungrateful reader could want more.' Or 'Missy is a ripsnorting, bawdy success with a wonderfully sympathetic heroine who is a winning mix of worldliness and self-delusion.

Narrated by a classic and irrepressible anti-heroine, Missy is an enjoyable romp through the real Old West...a very impressive debut novel

Dol is never less than convincing as a character, and has deservedly drawn comparisons with literary predecessors such as Thackeray's Becky Sharp and Defoe's Moll Flanders. Hannan's great skill is to make her both difficult and likeable, and the reader will devour this book in a matter of hours simply to find out what befalls her

Strong and memorable female characters throughout this enjoyable novel

Described as 'Deadwood meets Moll Flanders', Hannan's story is told by the vivacious, smart, streetwise Dol McQueen'.Another wonderful debut novel...I can't recommend this book highly enough, or Hannan's earthy, vital creation

Bodice-ripping romp through the West

Missy by Strong and memorable female characters throughout this enjoyable novel