Fair Trade Heroin

Author: Rachael McGill

Cover design: Marie Lane   Cover illustration: Mariann Johansen-Ellis  

Reviews

'There are a lot of issues in this novel. Firstly there is the awful situation in Afghanistan, particularly for women. Secondly, there is the hostile environment for immigrants in the UK. We also have the mother-teenage daughter issues as Nadia and Gwen clash.
However, a key issue seems to be, primarily for Gwen but also for others, how much one can/should compromise one set of principles to achieve a greater good. McGill is not giving any simple answers here, not least because there are no simple answers, though she does accept that, as we grow older, we may realise that life is more complicated than we thought when we were younger and I can only say, Amen to that.'

John Alvey in The Modern Novel

'Rachael McGill’s debut, Fair Traid Heroin is set between present-day London and mid-1990s Afghanistan, a country which is being taken over by the Taliban for the first time. McGill tells the story of an idealistic aid-worker (a heroine with an interest in heroin) and her teenage daughter, as hidden family secrets are suddenly revealed. McGill is particularly good at pointing to the inhumanity of the British asylum system, and the way that an apparently amorphous mass of Afghan and Pakistani refugees actually consists of a wide range of classes, customs and cultures.'

James Moran in The Tablet