Pay Days (Harpur and Iles Series #18)

by Bill James

Overview

Detective Chief Superintendent Colin Harpur and his brilliant, amoral superior ACC Desmond Iles face a dilemma that's both political and personal when they suspect a police officer of taking bribes from underworld criminals Panicking Ralph Ember and Top Banana Mansel Shale. Is Nivette doing some unauthorized undercover work—as Harpur himself often does—or is he really bent? It's a question of intense interest not only to Harpur and Iles but also to Ember and Shale, and searching for the answer entails several break-ins to Nivette's house to look for, take, or plant the evidence.

Meanwhile, the body of a pusher, Victor Goussard ("Slow Victor"), is found trussed up on a deserted boat in a city harbor—and then it disappears. His lover frantically, unwisely, starts to ask questions down at the docks; a snoopy television reporter sees a breaking story; and Ember, terrified of exposure, plots the murder of a man who knows too much. Harpur is fast on the trail to make the connections and prevent another crime, but it's a race against time—and treachery.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393337853
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	09/01/2001
Series:	Harpur and Iles Series , #18
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Bill James has been called "the Elmore Leonard of Britain's underworld" (Kirkus Reviews) and has been named a "Master of Crime" in a mystery roundup by the London Sunday Times, which said, "There is nothing else quite like this series of police procedurals. James is concerned with the dilemmas and difficulties of policing Britain's inner cities, and he addresses these in hard-edged narratives that leave readers gasping and flinching, praying the people in these stories never come to live in their streets." In addition to the Harpur and Iles series, James is the author of other mystery series and a book on Anthony Powell. He lives in Wales.

Editorial Reviews

[A] terrific series.... Get these books; settle into peril and chaos.

Bloomsbury Review

[In these books] the suspense is almost unbearable, the latent truth uncomfortable and the result haunting.

Frances Fyfield

The Elmore Leonard of Britain's underworld has himself a doozy of a plot this time. Rival druglords Manse Shale and Panicking Ralphy Ember and their seconds-in-command, Alf Ivis and Beau Derek, are trying to decide whether Chief Inspector Richard Nivette has really crossed over to their side or is "doubling" to gather information for Chief Supt. Colin Harpur and his superiors, caustic Assistant Chief Constable Desmond Iles and mentally fading Chief Constable Mark Lane. Harpur, Iles, and Lane are wondering the same thing, since Nivette's bribe-taking was unsanctioned. Meanwhile, the body of minor drug-hustler Slow Victor turns up on a boat moored at the docks, then disappears. Whodunit-and who took it? Probably the same sods who murdered and disappeared Slow Vic's lover Finnane, a pol in the Home Office Ministry-and put a bullet in the head of Nivette. The crooks predictably fall out, with Ivis double-crossing Shale and Ralphy maneuvering against Ivis. Meanwhile, Lane desperately hopes his protege Nivette died a hero; Iles tries to protect one of his favorite tarts, who was working dockside the night of Slow Vic's murder; and Harpur once again handles the brunt of the investigation while dealing with burglary, ride-arounds, snitches, grieving widows, dithery Lane, chronically hostile Iles, his own teenaged daughters, and his college-age girlfriend. Nobody's better than James (Panicking Ralph, p. 462, etc.) at showing pique escalating to bloody infighting among coppers as well as crooks. You'll need a scorecard to tally up the changing alliances-and you'll need to keep your head down to avoid the ubiquitous bullet.

Kirkus Reviews