truecrime: a novel [Hardcover]

Jake Arnott (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2004

Praise for truecrime:

“Funny, fast, witty, brutal. . . . Whenever he’s got a new book out I drop everything, knowing that the next couple of hours are going to be pure gangland bliss.”—David Bowie

Praise for Jake Arnott

“A great read.”—The New York Times Book Review

“An incendiary tension . . . fiercely seductive.”—Bloomsbury Review

“An anti-hero to die for.”—USA Today

“Strikingly original . . . hypnotically entertaining”—The Boston Globe

“Brilliant.”—The Washington Post

“Gripping.”—Seattle Times

“Sentences fired like bullets at the reader’s imagination.”—Los Angeles Times

Gangland London hasn’t been the same since Harry Starks absconded. The old gang isn’t quite what it used to be with the boss gone. Most are dead, imprisoned or serving time on barstools. Harry’s rumored to be laying low on Cyprus, the Law having given up on nabbing him. But someone is looking who doesn’t worry about extradition laws or the rights of the incarcerated. Someone with about as much use for the rules as Harry.

The predecessor to truecrime was Jake Arnott’s The Long Firm, which is being prepared for broadcast as a four-part series by the BBC. Together with He Kills Coppers, they constitute a small tell-all masterpiece revealing of the British underworld, populated by celebrity criminals, members of high society and the peerage, henchman and louche entertainers.

Jake Arnott is the author of the British bestsellers He Kills Coppers and The Long Firm, both available from Soho Press. He lives in London.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Talk about antiheroes: the three narrators of this novel of London's gritty underworld are set on murder, revenge and larceny. Tony Meehan is a washed-up crime journalist currently ghosting the memoir of Eddie Doyle, "[j]ewel thief, bank robber, known associate of most of the major gangland faces," who's just out of prison after serving time for his role in a heist of £15 million in gold, most of which was never recovered. Julie McClusky, the daughter of a murdered gangster, has become a middle-class actress—but she's also searching for her father's killer under the guise of working on her boyfriend's movie about London criminals. Shady businessman Gary "Gaz" Kelly has always modeled himself on "[v]illains and gangsters. The Kray Twins. Harry Starks. Flash bastards. Legends." Unlike the Kray Twins, Harry Starks is Abbott's creation (last seen in 2001's Long Firm); he's the supposed mastermind of the bullion theft, the possible key to the whereabouts of the gold and Julia's number one suspect. When Starks is spotted at Ronnie Kray's funeral, the search for him begins in earnest, and that search, as well as the crimes uncovered in its wake and committed during its progress, dominate the rest of the book. Arnott's plotting is intricate and his prose hard-edged, made more so by his atmospheric use of Cockney and slang and his close-up look at frightening but human villains.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

The shadowy underworld is bathed in limelight in this sly, postmodern denouement to the trilogy begun with The Long Firm (1999) and He Kills Coppers (2001). It is the mid-nineties now, and evocations of bitter gangland violence have become the trendiest stimulant since espresso. Closeted mass-murderer Tony Meehan ghostwrites gangster tell-alls that he terms "truecrime" in sardonic allusion to Orwell's denatured dystopia. Actress Julie sorts through her own crime-family matters with alienation conned from Brecht, even as her bourgeois filmmaker beau affects street mannerisms while producing Scrapyard Bulldog, a Tarantino-esque smash-and-bash carefully calculated to meet the public's forlorn craving for gritty authenticity. In the book's most diverting episodes, lowlife drug dealer Gaz Kelly adapts to high-fashion felony with knavish ease, emerging as an outlaw celebrity. The three narratives are finally linked via archvillain Harry Starks, but plot is incidental to cultural commentary that ranges from smart to glib. This is best read by Brit-pop enthusiasts in the seedy halflight of what has gone before. A much more effective American analog is Percival Everett's Erasure (2001). David Wright
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 348 pages
• Publisher: Soho Press (October 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1569473730
• ISBN-13: 978-1569473733
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,683,686 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An exciting and deftly written criminal drama, November 13, 2004

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: truecrime: a novel (Hardcover)

True Crime by Jake Arnott is a riveting novel of suspense, following Harry, a wanted London gangster, and his return to his old hometown. Most of Harry's old contacts are dead or behind bars, but one ruthless individual has focused upon Harry and will let neither rules nor conscience stand in his way. True Crime is confidently recommended as an exciting and deftly written criminal drama, heavy with suspense and featuring a protagonist who doesn't play by the good guy rules either.

2.0 out of 5 stars Beneath the glitter, not all that great, July 27, 2006

By 

Sirin (London, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: truecrime (Paperback)

Arnott is hyped as a crime writer with a wickedly origial satirical streak. This leads to some rather bizarre (and hypocritical marketing). For example, Arnott satirises the glamourising of crime and violence in the British media, yet his books are puffed by David Bowie who declares 'Whenever Arnott has a new book out, I drop everything, knowing that the next two hours are going to be pure gangland bliss'. Er, exactly.

I find that in his writing Arnott slips up the social satire (which is laid on pretty thickly - public schoolboys going mockney, ghostwriters wooing criminals to publish their memoirs, that sort of thing), the style, which still doesn't present a convincing British rival to the best of American fiction, and the plot, which was implausible and failed to get the pages turning in my case.