Keeping Mum

For fans of Nick Hornby, Mike Gayle, Jojo Moyes and Tony Parsons' Man and Boy.

Danny Malooley's life is falling apart.

He's a single parent with an eleven-year-old son, Will, who hasn't spoken since the death of his mother in a car crash fourteen months ago. He's being pursued by a dodgy landlord for unpaid rent and, to make matters worse, he's just lost his job on a building site. Struggling to find work, and desperate for money, Danny decides to do what anyone in his position would do.

He becomes a dancing panda.

After seeing street performers in his local park raking it in, he puts all sense of pride aside and spends his last fiver on a vomit-ridden costume... only to discover that the humiliation of his terrible rhythm is worth it. Not because he's flush with cash (quite the opposite) but Will has finally spoken to him for the first time since his mother's death. The problem is Will is unaware that the panda is in fact his father, and Danny doesn't want to reveal his true identity in case Will stops talking to him. But Danny can't keep up the ruse forever.

A surprising, laugh-out-loud and uplifting story of a father and son reconnecting in the most unlikely of circumstances.