Eugene Burnside joined the Firm before he left school, running drugs. Clever and ambitious, he's now twenty-eight and going places: he's come to the attention of the Faron Brothers and, as everyone knows, the brothers are the Firm. Promotion couldn't come too soon for Eugene - it means he no longer has to deal with middleman Mal Shifter and his two old aunts. Or those dogs. The lot of them give him the creeps. But if Eugene's gangland career is going well, things are not so sweet on the domestic front. He still lives at home with his mum, Gladys, and his sister Simone, the star of SweetHearts lap-dancing club. He's devoted to them both but wished he felt the same about Simone's son, Nero. He's not a nice child - 'disturbed' isn't the half of it. Then a SweetHearts girl goes missing. Evil has come to haunt the alleys and archways of North London - a killer the press have dubbed 'the Meatman' begins his grisly work and Eugene's world is turned on its head...