Top Banana (Macmillan crime) [Paperback]

Bill James (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1997 | Series: Macmillan crime

A girl is shot down, caught in the crossfire between two rival drug gangs. For Chief Constable Lane there is only one option - infiltrate the gangs and rid his patch of this menace. Meanwhile, DCS Harpur, investigating Mandy's death, discovers that the bullets were not fired by the warring gangs.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

"Possibly she even realized, or half-realized, that there was something wrong with her life.... She wondered whether what had happened to the park had happened to her: a dark, rushed change that would never change back."

This is England's mystery treasure Bill James describing a 13-year-old girl known as Noon, soon to be shot dead while working as a drug courier near a rundown park. Her death sets off a series of explosions in James's latest book in his wonderfully dark and exquisitely written Harpur & Iles series.

Detective chief superintendent Colin Harpur (said to resemble a taller English version of the late boxer Rocky Marciano) plays a largely reactive role this time, trying to keep his immediate superior, assistant chief constable Desmond Iles, from doing serious mental damage to chief constable Mark Lane in their unnamed city to the north of London. "Lane's life was mortally chafed by the ACC's brilliant rough mind and unstoppable tongue," James writes. Iles wants the police to make an unholy alliance with top drug dealers, especially Mansel Shale, whose oddly brilliant dialogue suggests a mating of Damon Runyon and Harold Pinter. Lane is strongly opposed, favoring instead a dangerous attempt to infiltrate Shale's operation. "The risks were gross. Normally, the Chief would have been the first to see it, but terrible anxieties and swelling guilt had begun to fracture his judgement, and even his humanity."

Roses, Roses, the previous Harpur & Iles book, covered the murder of Harpur's wife and was on several 1998 Top 10 lists. Other fine examples of James's high art include Club, Gospel, Halo Parade, and The Lolita Man. Plunge in anywhere, and be prepared to become addicted. --Dick Adler --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Here's good news for James's fans: Norton seems to be publishing the author's British backlist at an ever-increasing pace. Six months after the appearance of his Roses, Roses, a PW Best Book of 1998 (originally published in Britain in 1993), comes a marvelously mordant mystery (released in Britain in 1996) also featuring Detective Chief Superintendent Colin Harpur, who's now trying to prevent the "venomous dandy" Assistant Chief Constable Desmond Iles, his superior, from destroying Chief Constable Mark Lane. The fallout begins when a 13-year-old girl is inadvertently killed while acting as a drug courier. Iles wants to curtail drug-related crime by making a treaty with the top dealers, especially Mansel Shale (whom James invests with brilliant dialogue that suggests a mating of Damon Runyon and Harold Pinter: "I would not like to be talking to any child of mine if I thought he had bullets in him"). Lane won't consider such an unholy alliance, and orders a dangerous mission to infiltrate Shale's operation. Harpur juggles his loyalties to his superiors while also trying to be a caring father to his two teenage daughters, still recovering from the murder of their mother. Matters grow even more complicated when Harpur discovers that Mandy's death may not have been so accidental. This novel's exceptionally strong prose seals James's reputation as one of the finest stylists in the genre?and his wholly involving characters and plotting stamp the seal tight. (Feb.) FYI: Bill James is a pseudonym for James Tucker, who also writes as David Craig.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Pan Macmillan (October 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0330350080
• ISBN-13: 978-0330350082
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,666,377 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another winning entry of Bill James with Harpur and Iles, March 8, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Top Banana: A Harpur & Iles Mystery (Hardcover)

I have read every entry in James' series starring Harpur and Iles, and loved every one. His villains (hard to distinguish from the coppers) are the best in the business--and their dialogue sparkles! You can almost hear Bob Hoskins and Michael Caine sparring with each other had any of these been made into movies(why haven't they?) And Harpur and the rapier tongued Iles, they are absolutely marvelous--a couple of coppers not above planting evidence(in earlier books) breaking and entering and so on, all in the name of justice(?)I have been big fan of Elmore Leonard for years and still am, but when it comes to dialogue and witty repartee, James is in a CLASS BY HIMSELF!!

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Deep Noir, December 11, 2001

By 

James B (Kansas City, Mo. United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Top Banana (Harpur & Iles Mystery) (Paperback)

I'm hooked on these Harpur and Iles mysteries. They are unlike anything else out there in the genre of contemporary tough Brit dicks... even the best of the authors(Rankin, Harvey)pale in comparison. & Top Banana by Bill James might be the best of the bunch(pun intended)he's written. The truly weird relationship Harpur and Iles have is almost perfectly mirrored in the two drug lords Mansel Shale and Alf Ivis. Shale and Iles can see into the future or to put it another way they can telescope current events into accurate guesses of what will happen next, or who is behind a murder. I've been absolutely zealous pushing these books on my friends to read and often they'll say the books are too dark or too weird but hey, post-9-11 it's all too dark and weird so there's this congruency, this perfect fit. Try it. It's a 50-50 proposition Bill James either scores deep or is totally wrong for you.There's certainly nothing middling about this authors work.

4.0 out of 5 stars Another part of a superior series, September 16, 2006

By 

Pitoucat (UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Top Banana (Harpur & Iles Mystery) (Paperback)

This is the thirteenth book in the Harpur and Iles series, begun in 1985 and starring the sarcastic DCS and devious ACC of an unspecified provincial police force. Mandy, a just-teenage drugs courier has been killed in a shoot-out between rival gangs of dealers. The Chief Constable wants infiltration of the syndicates, but it soon appears that the sergeant he nominates for the task may already be in the pay of one of the gangs. Colin Harpur and Desmond Iles, as ever, have their own, different plans for confronting the drug barons.

Bill James excels in writing about the murky interface between coppers and villains in a style which is unique, and totally realistic, if cynical. His treatment of dialogue is especially brilliant. The only problem is that, reading just one novel is a bit like watching only a couple of episodes of a TV soap: there are so many continuing sub-plots involving the same characters, that you need to read the entire series of books in order to extract the maximum from each one. So, why don't you?