Full Metal Cardigan is David Emery's first book and chronicles his adventures in social care, from enthusiastic volunteer to feral frontline worker, taking in abusive popstars, chanting cults, drug runs, sectioning a corpse and teaching masturbation to reluctant sex offenders.

He recounts how he gained international notoriety for cheating in a pancake race, encounters with the supernatural, high court appearances, cryogenically frozen kittens, accidentally booking someone into Dignitas, one-inch death punches in Woolworths, jumping out of moving cars, waterboarding, psychotic psychopaths, knife-wielding pregnant women and suicide attempts with rhubarb along the way.

This is a humorous look at life as a social worker: in turns both laugh-out-loud funny and mind-boggling.