Double Jeopardy [Hardcover]

Bill James (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 25, 2002

Whose side is the Law ? and detective Kerry Lake in particular ? on? Scout Pethor and his friend Matthew Gain were acquitted of the race-related murder of Angela Sabat, a black American girl. It's a judgement Angela's mother doesn?t accept. Still, you can?t be charged twice for the same crime ? can you? So there shouldn?t be anything for Kerry Lake to worry about. But the post-trial inquiry suggests that policeman Vic Othen, Lake's adulterous lover, might have been involved.

--This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The Bill James Book of the Month Club continues (last month's entry was Split, a valiant effort to revive the spy novel) with another worthy cause a mystery about the way British police handle racially motivated crimes, which could have been, as they say, ripped from today's headlines. Botched prosecutions in at least two recent cases with black murder victims set the real-life tone and raise the fictional stakes, as a white female police officer watches her older detective lover being grilled by a commission of inquiry for his role in a case where two white men were acquitted in the killing of a young black American woman. Did detective constable Vic Othen cooperate in some sort of a coverup in the investigation into the murder of Angela Sabat? Vic's married ladyfriend, officer Kerry Lake, is certainly beginning to think so and the arrival on the scene from Detroit of Angela's feisty mother threatens to blow the whole thing back into the media's greedy eye. Kerry and Mrs. Sabat make a formidable, touching team as they come from two different directions toward the truth. Some of the sharper edges of his highly praised Harpur and Iles police series are blurred here (perhaps by hasty writing), but James still has the sharpest ear for the smarminess of official language of anyone in the business. And only a master of oddly appropriate combinations of words could produce gems like, "This certainty chimed with the barmy grandeur of her ego, she would admit that."
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

(*Starred Review*) James has entertained fans for years with his ironic, offbeat, intelligent police procedurals. His charismatic characters walk a fine line between good and evil, and his explorations of the human psyche are as fascinating as they are revealing. But his greatest gift is for droll, cynical humor that offsets the appalling violence and tension in his plots. In his latest, Detective Sergeant Kerry Lake, an Oxford graduate on fast-track promotion to top cop, has one failing--her fatal attraction to veteran detective Vic Othen, who's years older than Kerry and a dangerous man but a great lover. The fact that Kerry is married to an up-and-coming businessman is no deterrent. But Othen's career is in danger after he's hauled before a Special Inquiry for his role in what's seen as a police cover-up. An attractive young black woman from America was brutally murdered, and Othen was first on the scene. But did his connection to the two men accused of the crime, Scout Pethor and Matthew Gain, influence the way he handled the case? And did race play a role in what happened? Pethor and Gain were acquitted, but Kerry knows they're guilty. Can she prove it without ruining Othen's career? This cleverly constructed, masterfully written novel, which will grip readers from first page to unexpected end, draws on issues raised by the headline-grabbing Stephen Lawrence trial in the UK. Emily Melton
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Severn House Publishers (April 25, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0727858246
• ISBN-13: 978-0727858245
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,717,138 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars A Very Good Mystery by the author of the Harpur and Iles series, September 8, 2009

By 

Terry Weiss "Mystery Lover" (Corvallis, OR U.S.A.) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Double Jeopardy (Hardcover)

Normally I find that Bill James should stick to his wonderful, and very unique, characters - Harpur and Iles and the series that features them. I've normally not been very happy with the books he's written with other main characters. So I was delighted to find myself enjoying this one immensely. He has done a good job of writing using women as main characters - I believed them and felt the plot flowed from the characters - one of my main criteria for a well-written mystery.

I read it straight through and felt that James really had his hand on the wheel - a confident, strong, elegantly written (if quirky, which we expect from this writer) book. I love his style with Harpur and Iles - it's original and fits the atmosphere he's creating. This time out he's modified that style to suit this plot and these characters - and that is appropriate. There's still enough James here to keep his fans (and count me right in the front of this group) happy.

A woman police detective on her way up, and a woman who comes to England to find out why and how her daughter was murdered, team up to get the real story, and then to make sure some sort of justice is done. Satisfying, I call it. I think this is a book any James fan will enjoy, and would be a fine introduction to a reader new to Bill James and his very original take on police procedurals.

3.0 out of 5 stars Doodling along and not getting anywhere., September 11, 2003

By 

lvkleydorff - See all my reviews

This review is from: Double Jeopardy (Hardcover)

Angela Sabat, a young black woman from Detroit, is killed in an English provincial town. Who did it? Suspicion points at Matthew Gain and at Peter Vincent Pethor, called Scout, the twin brother of P.D. Pethor. Both had been prosecuted for the murder but released due to lack of evidence. Double Jeopardy: The two can not be tried again for the same crime.

For reasons not entirely clear, Detective Kerry Lake now goes fulltime after the perpetrators. Her road is not fascinating, surprising, or innovative. As a matter of fact, the whole procedure is extremely boring on the scale of "he said, she said, they all said", sprinkled with profound thoughts. The different players do not even manage to stay in character. The suspects never change.There is no new evidence. By the time the crime is solved - more or less without outside help - you could not care less about who did it.

Forget it.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Moral gray areas in English police--very good indeed, January 10, 2003

By 

booksforabuck "BooksForABuck" (Long Beach, CA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Double Jeopardy (Hardcover)

Scout Pethor and Matthew Gain have been cleared of the murder of beautiful black co-ed Angela Sabat--and the British police are intent to discover why, and to find a scapegoat. Because they believe Pethor and Gain are guilty as sin, and that only a police coverup could have brought about their acquittal. Vic Othen, Kerry Lake's sometimes lover, looks to be an appropriate fall guy. He did, after all, discover the body acting on a tip. Couldn't he have been called in to hide the evidence? Who else but the killers would have known where to send him?

Kerry lives in a world where everyone seems to know everyone else's secrets. Her love affair with Vic, even her meeting with Pethor's brother become common knowledge among Pethor's criminal gang, his jailed competitor, her police chief, and even the victim's mother--a journalist intent on discovering the truth and just maybe creating a bit of justice. The British courts deny that justice is possible. Gain and Pethor can't be tried again under the rules of double jeopardy. But that doesn't mean that their lives need be pleasant. Unfortunately, they seem just smart enough to be able to stay ahead of justice, just as they've stayed ahead of the law.

Author Bill James writes powerfully about the moral ambiguities and small victories of the modern police. In this short but complex novel, everyone is working an angle, everyone has more than one hidden agenda, and nothing is what it seems. Even when Kerry assures herself that she wouldn't continue to support Vic if she knew him corrupt, there is always a question mark at the end of her question. When the law holds a killer innocent, what moral rules can or should apply?

As with James's Harpur and Iles novels, DOUBLE JEOPARDY deals with shades of gray. Killing a black woman is worse than beating one up. Giving a free ride to a criminal in prison might be better than a free ride to a killer who is free. And taking a bribe might not be so bad if the cop doing the taking doesn't really deliver what she promised. DOUBLE JEOPARDY left me feeling disturbed, dirty, and entertained.