Read for a book group, but struggled to get through it. Full of British street slang of the mid-1980's and featuring an anti-hero cop. I thought it contained gratuitous violence. ( )

As an avid fan of detective fiction, I am always on the look out for new authors and so, when I found this book for 50 pence in a second hand emporium, I could not resist. My interest was heightened by the praise upon the cover of this paperback edition the Daily Telegraph, the Sunday Times and Booklist, all ladled praise upon Mr James.

The book is reasonably well written and, thankfully, ignores the bad language and graphic descriptions of gory murder, which is so much the mark for modern whodunnits. It is also crisply produced with none of the paraphernalia that adorns so many crime stories. We do not spend pages upon Harpur, our hero, and discover that work has turned him into an alcoholic wife-beater, but a loveable man really. Page one puts us into the adventure and the last sentence resolves matters.

Now for the gripes; sadly none of the characters became, either real, or odd enough to be of interest; the story was all. This is OK, but to pull it off, the tale must be strong and I was somewhat disappointed when the main villain, who Harpur had been chasing throughout the book, was killed by a bit character without our even being present, in a literary sense. Harpur is told of the murder afterwards and I, for one, felt somewhat cheated as the tale was recounted. ( )