The Rise and Fall of the Miraculous Vespas

When a young Ayrshire band unexpectedly hits the big time with the smash hit record of 1984, everything looks rosy, despite their delusional young manager and a thwarted plot to kidnap Boy George. What could possibly go wrong? The riotously funny, heartwarming, and deeply poignant second book in the bestselling Disco Days Trilogy.

***Now adapted for the stage by Scotland’s Borderline Theatre Co. and the Ayr Gaiety theatre***

'This band would definitely bring on Stockholm Syndrome' Boy George

’An astonishing tour de force’ John Niven

‘A great white-knuckle read set in the world of hope, dreams and DIY pop’ Stuart Cosgrove

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The Rise and Fall of the Miraculous Vespas is the timeless story of the quest for pop immortality. When a young Ayrshire band miraculously hits the big time with the smash hit record of 1984, international stardom beckons. That’s despite having a delusional teenage manager propelled by a dark, malign voice in his head…

Can Max Mojo’s band of talented social misfits repeat the success and pay back the mounting debts accrued from an increasingly agitated cartel of local gangsters? Or will they have to kidnap Boy George and hope for the best?

Featuring much-loved characters from the international bestseller, The Last Days of Disco, this is an absurdly funny, riotously ambitious and deeply human story of small-town rivalries, music, confused adolescence and, above all, hope, from one of Scotland’s finest new voices.

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Praise for David F. Ross

’This is a book that might just make you cry like nobody’s watching’ Iain MacLeod, Sunday Mail

‘Warm, funny and evocative’ Chris Brookmyre

‘Crucially Ross's novel succeeds in balancing light and dark, in that it can leap smoothly from brutal social realism to laugh-out-loud humour within a few sentences’ Press & Journal

’More than just a nostalgic recreation of the author's youth, it's a compassionate, affecting story of a family in crisis at a time of upheaval and transformation, when disco wasn't the only thing whose days were numbered' Herald Scotland

’Ross creates beautifully rounded characters full of humanity and perhaps most of all, hope. It will make you laugh. It will make you cry. It s rude, keenly observed and candidly down to earth’ Liam Rudden, Scotsman

‘There’s a bittersweet poignancy to David F. Ross’s debut novel, The Last Days of Disco’ Edinburgh Evening News

‘Full of comedy, pathos and great tunes’ Hardeep Singh Kohli

‘Dark, hilarious and heartbreaking’ Muriel Gray

‘If I saw that in a store I would buy it without even looking at what was inside’ Irvine Welsh

‘Like the vinyl that crackles off every page … as warm and authentic as Roddy Doyle at his very best’ Nick Quantrill

‘A solid-gold hit of a book! The closest you’ll ever get to being on Top of the Pops’ Colin McCredie