City Rats is the factitious tale of eight Londoners from the lower reaches of the East End who pair off to go about their tedious, unconvincing ways with Canary Wharf usually in the background. A middle-aged, black woman teams up with an ex-convict to disinter her son's body and murder the drug dealer responsible for his death. A crippled whore specialising in the fulfilment of her clients' sexual fantasies agrees to become the muse of a mad street poet addicted to masturbation. Two would-be suicides make contact when they spot each other from adjoining high-rise buildings. A young man arranges for his retarded brother to have sex with a rent-boy. An all-seeing deity would avert his eyes from this lot.