Framed

Product Information

Taking many elements from Ronnie's own life, it is the story of Frankie James, a young lad in 1990s Soho, who dodges gangsters and underworld crime to run a snooker club in the absence of his father (in prison for armed robbery) and his mother (who ran off years before).

They] were discussing the local lad, The Rocket, and whether he might win the Masters for a second time. The story is as seen by Frankie and the characters are all introduced and explained in a way the reader can easily assimilate into the story line. None of these period details ever pays off in any way, nor do they serve to ground the story in any real sense of place and time. Since turning professional in 1992, O'Sullivan has clocked up an incredible number of awards and trophies, including the UK Championship, the China Open, the Regal Championships, the Benson and Hedges Masters and the British Open. Ignoring the crime and solving thereof, it had a lot more going on around it which made it a very well balanced overall read for me.Although it does flirt with it from time to time, the book on the whole avoids the nostalgic sentimentality that surrounds accounts of the Krays and the Richardsons, although its relationship with the underworld is complicated. You can believe, from the first chapter onward, that this story was written by someone who knows his way around in the dark and who has used a cue stick for something other than moving a cue ball. Yes also, there were a few cliched moments to be had but, again, mostly in context and totally forgivable.

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His mother disappeared when he was sixteen; his father’s in jail for armed robbery; and he owes rent on the Soho snooker club he inherited to one of London’s toughest gangsters.