Dinner At The Happy Skeleton

Dan is the kind of gay man for whom the Noughties might have been named. Warm, witty and serially promiscuous, his heart melts at the sight of a chocolate brown Labrador - but with men, it's a different matter. He's thirty-nine and as single as ever, not counting the couple he just met online. An arrangement that looks oddly like it's going somewhere, until Dan gets fired from his job in advertising.

With time out and a payoff in his pocket, summer presents a world of possibilities; just as the memories surface of the ex he blames for the thinly-veiled chaos of his life.

From London to Ljubljana, a yen for closure sets Dan on the trail of the man who fed his ego into a shredder. Through an eerie encounter at the home of the Olympiad and a sleepover at the Dutch Embassy, run-ins with a fading porn star and the celestial manifestation of Margaret Thatcher, he ultimately confronts his past. Until, with his Big Four-O rapidly approaching, destiny beckons from where he least expects it.

'Full of wit, comedy and unflinching honesty ... Like reading a gay Nick Hornby. This is clever contemporary fiction at its finest.' Bleach House Library

'In Dan, Chris Chalmers has created his most appealing protagonist yet. Recently let loose from his advertising job and with time on his hands, Dan embarks on a hedonistic odyssey through gay London, describing his scrapes and adventures via hookup website click4dick with ribald wit. But what Dan doesn't know, and the reader can easily guess, is that deep down he's aching for a real connection with someone, somewhere. Will he find Mr Right by clambering over the bodies of innumerable Mr Right-Nows? Chalmers' novel is an eye-opening, always entertaining romp through modern sexual mores, with a sweet, beating heart of true feeling at its core.' Suzi Feay, literary journalist