September 2016 Non-fiction Birlinn

Money: The Life and Fast Times of Floyd Mayweather Jr. Tris Dixon

Floyd 'Money' Mayweather is one of the most successful professional boxers of all time. In September 2015 he defeated Andre Berto at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas to claim his forty-ninth professional victory in a glittering unbeaten ring career that has spanned two decades.

Mayweather was born into a boxing family that was barely surviving on the poverty line. His father had enjoyed a modestly successful career in the ring but had to make ends meet on the street. When a rival drug dealer arrived at the house and threatened to shoot him, Floyd Mayweather Sr picked up his son and used him as a human shield. Such were the ashes from which Floyd was to rise.

This is the remarkable story of Floyd Mayweather's ascent from these bleak origins to become the highest-paid sportsman on the planet. It is a story of greed, arrogance, abuse, extraordinary boxing ability and unrivalled ambition. In Money, Tris Dixon explores it all in a searing, insightful and often brutal exposé of one of the greatest athletes the world has ever seen.