The Crime Trade - Hardcover

Simon Kernick

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0593051351 ISBN 13: 9780593051351

Publisher: Bantam Press, 2004

Synopsis

When Operation Surgical Strike, a police sting designed to catch Colombian drug traffickers in the act of selling a large consignment of cocaine to undercover police officers in a Heathrow hotel, goes horribly wrong, suspicion quickly falls on one of the officers 'Stegs' Jenner. But Stegs is no ordinary undercover cop. Something of a maverick, with a chequered disciplinary record, he's always lived life on the edge. With his close friend dead in the shoot-out, he now determines to go it alone.Enter DI John Gallan and his partner DS Tina Boyd, part of the Serious Crime Squad investigating the murder of ex-gangster turned informer Slim Robbie O'Brien. Slim Robbie had helped Gallan and Boyd set up the operation and is now dead too, shot with his mother in his council flat in Islington while events at Heathrow were taking place. Meanwhile Stegs Jenner is working to his own agenda, developing a plan he's been thinking about for a long, long time. Revenge, he decides, is a dish best taken very, very cold. But is he the man the police are after?As Gallan, Boyd and DI Asif Malik inch ever nearer to the man responsible for the Heathrow shooting, they uncover a murderous conspiracy that will take them to the heart of one of London's most notorious criminal gangs. What they cannot know is that they've also embarked on a collision path that will lead one of them straight into the rifle sights of the enemy.

About this title

About the Author

SIMON KERNICK lives near London with his wife and young daughter. Both The Business of Dying and The Murder Exchange have won him popular and critical acclaim.

From Booklist

The third entry in Kernick's loosely knit London gangland series opens with a bang, as the ironically named Colombian narcotics sting, Operation Surgical Strike, dissolves into a bloodbath when uninvited thugs make the scene. Among the dead is the partner of nasty undercover cop Stegs Jenner. Things get perplexing fast as DI John Gallen, whose recent promotion seems to have rubbed off some rough edges, finds the probable leak shot dead and must include Stegs among a dwindling pool of suspects. In Kernick's world, coppers mostly come in three varieties: bent, twisted, and broken; not surprisingly, then, much of this book's suspense hinges on just how far Stegs will go and whether we will end up respecting or loathing him when the smoke has cleared. Although Stegs is not as compelling as Milne, the antihero at the black heart of the series debut, The Business of Dying (2003), this remains a solid, morally ambiguous mystery with some great tricks up its sleeve. Kernick belongs on the second tier of Brit noir, right below Bruen, Lawrence, and Harvey. David Wright
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Edition details

• Publisher: Bantam Press
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0593051351
• ISBN 13: 9780593051351
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 382