Right, let's make something clear. If graphic sex, bloody violence, sadistic bastards, rank-smelling humour and unadulterated sexism are not your thing - do not read Charlie Owen's Horse's Arse.

It is easy to understand why Owen, a policeman for 30 years, goes to great lengths to make it clear Horse's Arse is a work of fiction - it is not for the faint-of-heart or anyone who has ever thought of joining Her Majesty's police force.

Horse's Arse is the appropriate nickname of 1970s Handstead, a Manchester housing estate where all the scum, criminally-minded, murdering maniacs and violence-addicted lowlifes reside.

It's these people, but in uniform, who staff the police station.

Horse's Arse is about a time when officers, delightfully named the Grim brothers, Psycho, Pizza and Piggy Malone, used enforcement tactics not written in any manual to bring Handstead's Park Royal Mafia to its knees.

Owen's words are basic and to the point and it makes for a raw read with characters you genuinely grow to like.

You could drive a bus through some of the finer aspects of the plot but in general it is a read well worth the countless insults being hurled off the page.

The sickening bumph from the PR company describes the novel as The Sweeney meets Life on Mars but I prefer Trainspotting meets Goodfellas.

The brilliant introduction says it all and I won't ruin it for you, but after the first chapter you know anything could happen before you've finished the book and, normally, it does.