6:23PM, Jun 09, 2009
Freddie Jackson is released from prison after serving four years on a bank robbery charge. It's 1984, and there's a lot about the modern age he doesn't understand, from Culture Club to the aerobics fad – but it doesn't matter. He made some powerful friends in the criminal underworld while he was behind bars, and he's ready to take East London by storm.
To say Freddie has a short fuse would be an understatement: Many men fear his hair trigger temper. For every gangster cowering in his presence, though, there's a coked up and underdressed woman ready to take him home – and Freddie's always happy to go with them.
Freddie IS married, though. His long suffering wife Jackie – the mother of his children – is under the colossally false impression that Freddie changed in prison and wants to go on the straight and narrow.
Freddie's relationship with his cousin Jimmy is a complicated one. Growing up, Freddie was always looking after Jimmy – the brawn to Jimmy's brains. But with Jimmy poised to move up within the organisation, his relationship with Freddie threatens to become precarious.
Freddie is determined to become the king of the East London underworld. He's got the support of Ozzy – one of the most powerful men in the world of crime – and the tenacity of a pitbull. But he's also got a penchant for drink, drugs, and a thirst for revenge that puts him at risk at all times. With Freddie focused on rising to the top of the syndicate, he's often blind to the virulent jealousy and betrayal that are threatening to unravel his family.
