'Ches Fanning is a downsized sports broadcaster reduced to calling sheep dog trials in rural Gippsland. He stops for counter tea at the rundown Fish Creek pub. It is the night of the local darts finals. There he spots in languid action the willowy Sam Alley, a twenty-year-old girl. Despite her parents' reservations, he takes her under his wing. He becomes her player manager and promoter but her Australian run is derailed by power brokers.
'Ches decides to take Sam to England. She competes against Britain's finest in the Pay-TV series Double Tops. He and Sam must contend with his ex and would-be wives, Helen and Hollie, the fierce local champ Tiger Magee and a hostile dartocracy. As Ches says, "People are going to lap up the story of the small town country girl who went to the Old Dart and whipped them on their own patch of lager-sodden axminster."
'Whether you're a sports tragic or not, Alan Cornell's The Gentle Art of Tossing aims straight for your funny bone and hits the target.' (From the publisher's website.)
