Pawel, a young Polish businessman, is in trouble; in debt to loan sharks his only hope lies with former friends, many of whom are now prominent in Warsaw's drug-dealing underground. Embarking on a desperate fool's-gold chase through the city's grimy apartments and creaking transport system Pawel struggles for survival as part of a generation adrift in moral space and disconnected from family, neighbours and friends.

Nine is a brilliant novel from one of Europe's finest writers: both an existential crime novel and a major work of literature.