Jack Stack, a no-nonsense cockney, takes over as editor of the beleaguered Mercury and within a day transforms the formerly respectable newspaper into the most tabloid of all tabloids. His cut-the-crap management style has the old guard trembling in its boots, but has he met his match in the domineering Marina Marshall - the chairman's mistress and the most canny columnist in Fleet Street? Perfect for an era obsessed with media influence and spin, The Silly Season is a laugh-out-loud, satirical novel of tabloid power.