Customer Reviews

Crew

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British hooligan authority Brimson turns his hand to fiction in this surprisingly readable bit of pulp about a top hooligan and the policeman with a sworn vendetta against him. The plot is fairly simple, DI Paul Jarvis of the National Football Intelligence Unit watched a fellow policeman die a few years previously in a hooligan rampage orchestrated by Billy Evans. Fast-forward a few years and Evans is a top man and a semi-respectable used car dealer. Jarvis discovers Evans is planning something big in conjunction with an England game in Italy, and tries every means possible to find out what. Part of that means putting the screws on those trusted by Evans, and soon enough, Jarvis has got a grass to go along with the undercover officer already on the scene. The story builds nicely to the climax in Italy, and has a really well setup twist at the end that'll leave you shaking your head. I didn't expect much from this book, and to be sure, it's not of the same quality as John King, but it does deliver a page-turning punch of a read.

I thought I had an understanding of British soccer hooligans, but Dougie Brimson's "The Crew" is an in-depth novelization of the hooligan life and the police response to it. This topic seems to have dominated Brimson's writing career since 1997. Hooliganism is an odd-subculture of sport, which we we've only seen in diminutive form in the United States - small riots when teams win; small riots when they lose; the occasional fight at a baseball or football game. But British hooliganism, and European hooliganism as far as that goes, is fighting for the sake of fighting, territorialism in the extreme, more like American gang culture. Perhaps it's the popularity of football, the xenophobia of the hooligan class, and the geographical proximity but historical separation from Europe that makes British hooliganism abroad legendary. That's also what forms the framework for "The Crew." From street fights among hooligan crews in Britain, the book broadens out to fears of a hooligan invasion of Rome - on behalf of an Italian fascist group - to interrupt an England-Italy international match. With an informant inside a British hooligan crew, England's National Football Intelligence Unit (NFIU) works to reign in the hooligans, stop an international incident, and connect hooligan leader Billy Evans to an incident years earlier that resulted in the death of an NFIU officer and the near-fatal beating of NFIU Detective Paul Jarvis. Throughout the book, Jarvis and Evans match wits as the England-Italy match approaches. Brimson maintains the suspense throughout, from beginning to the surprising end. Don't worry if you don't like football (soccer); that's not what the book's about.

This is a very well written book. Don't be put off if you aren't an English soccer fan. This is basically a crime novel. But not the usual sort at all. The actual crime can't even be proved to have happened, and the related crime remains forever a who-done-it by the way it's solved. Truly original!!!

This is a great tough guy story with an excellent twist. It is well worth the read. I only wish there were more books in this series!