Soho by Keith Waterhouse (Sceptre, £16.99)

LEEDS lad Waterhouse knows this bizarre square mile of London with its clubs, pubs, restaurants, pubs and porn outlets like the back of his hand.

He has seen it change from a haven of exotic aromas emanating from ethnic eateries and delicatessens to sleazy clip joints and bed shows attracting more dodgy characters than Dickens could shake a pen at.

He has spent more than 30 years people-watching, drinking and eating in this famous quarter of the capital.

Every page of this immaculately-observed account of its oddballs confirms his love of the place.

In this modern version of Voltaire's Candide, Alex, a young student from Leeds, has 24 hours to find and confront his run-away girlfriend Selby about why she dumped him.

He hitches a lift in a rhubarb lorry and heads to London for the first time in his life.

His odyssey among the high but mainly low-life of Soho brings him into contact with boozy ex-actors, a perverted TV personality, a wannabe film producer, a porn king, cross-dressers - the flotsam and jetsam of Soho's diverse stratas of everyday and all-night life.

When he meets up with aspiring journalist James Flood, Alex he sets out on a roller-coaster ride into the heart of hilarity and darkness, all the while thinking he is close to Selby as he glimpses someone he takes to be her darting in and out of the Soho melee.

Three deaths, a fire, a mugging and countless drinks later Alex is reeling and loving the ever-flowing social mix that is Soho.

Wide-eyed and often legless, has he got stories to tell the lads when he gets back to the student union bar in Leeds? If he makes it... A cracking and crackling read from start to finish from the man who gave us Billy Liar all those years ago.