From Publishers Weekly
In James's world, the good guys?Detective Colin Harpur and his scheming, sarcastic superior officer, Desmond Iles?often seem more evil and lust-fixated than his bad guys, who here boast nicknames like Caring and Panicking. This follow-up to Take and Club begins after an earlier robbery has left Caring Oliver and Panicking Ralph with extra quid, while a bunch of other crooks are none too pleased. Panicking Ralph, whose Charlton Heston looks attract the ladies, often chokes under pressure. Once in a while, he can gather his nerve, as he does here in order to ice Caring. His timing isn't great, however. The frolic he enjoys with Caring's wife occurs in the woods only a few feet from where the lady's husband lies. Later, they steam up the windows of her Volvo, parked near another car, where the married Harpur is similarly engaged with Iles's wife. James's vision is dark and droll. Iles is eruditely, unforgettably bad, and the prissy, superficial Panicking Ralph is a priceless creation who might be a spineless wreck for long stretches but is able, on occasion, to "switch it on," as he notes himself. James deals in grim ironies, serving them up in bursts of giddy, spiraling dialogue (with lots of British working-class vernacular), in which evil is convincingly justified and occasional goodness is thrown in for light comic relief.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
The antic, murderous gang who took that Exeter bank for œ1.8 million (Club, 1995) are at it again. ``Caring'' Oliver Leach, the brains of the operation, is rumored to have taken off to the Continent with a good bit more than his share of the loot, so some freelancers who know about the job kidnap his daughter on spec. Meanwhile, as Chief Supt. Colin Harpur and his colleagues are taking turns holding the marble hand of Patsy Leach, who's convinced that her daughter has kidnapped herself, Caring's old mate Ralph Ember knows the kidnapping will never work, since he's already killed Caring himself, buried him out in Cheltenham, and comforted the widow, well, astride the grave. But Ember can't help feeling a responsibility toward Lynette Leach: ``What he had before him was what definitely had to be referred to as a moral dilemma.'' So as Harpur is enjoying the favors of the Assistant Chief Constable's wife, herself fresh from the embraces of other Caring buddies, lower-ranking police officers, and heaven knows who else, Ember is fighting off the heavies who keep swarming over him and struggling to dope out a way to rise above himself and rescue the kiddie. As in James's seven other darkly comic procedurals: so many blandly sordid revelations about the coppers, this time enlivened with much coupling in Volvos and Ember's peerlessly middle-class thuggery, that you just have to laugh. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
