Shortlisted for the 2006 Duncan Lawrie Dagger. A brilliant police procedural with complex characters and plenty of black humour. The relationship between DCS Colin Harpur and his boss ACC Desmond Isles is wickedly funny and one of the many highlights of James's writing. This was my first taste of Bill James and I'm already champing at the bit for more.
A big 'cash-in-transit' raid goes hopelessly wrong and armed police swoop down stop the robbery and grab the thieves. But how, and why, could it fail after all the smart planning? Did someone leak the date and time? Relatives and friends of the jailed men are sure someone did - the only raider to escape the trap. Was that exit fixed for him by a grateful police squad? A vengeance party starts the search for the grass.
On their patch far away from the botched raid, DCS Colin Harpur and his boss, ACC Desmond Iles, are given the tricky job of hiding and protecting the informant and his family. Yet all the time the avengers are closing in, aided and abetted by the reckless behaviour of the informant himself. Harpur and Iles find they have their toughest assignment to date - one which is ultimately resolved in one of the most brutal and astonishing turn-arounds even they have ever seen.
Bill James lives in his native South Wales. He is married with four children and is the author of a critical work on Anthony Powell as well as many thrillers and crime novels.
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