**Winner, Leipzig Book Fair Prize 2008**

A man bets all he has on a horse race to pay for an expensive operation for his dog. A young refugee wants to box her way straight off the boat to the top of the sport. Old friends talk all night after meeting up by chance. She imagines a future together.

Stories about people who have lost out in life and in love, and about their hopes for one really big win, the chance to make something of their lives. In silent apartments, desolate warehouses, prisons and by the river, Meyer strikes the tone of our harsh times, and finds the grace notes, the bright lights shining in the dark.