Layer Cake

A twenty-nine-year-old London drug dealer takes on one last deal before retirement, but his plan for unloading two million Ecstasy tablets runs into trouble and he finds himself double-crossed and struggling to survive.

The worst thing about drug dealing, whether you're a classy top dealer trading millions or a down-and-out street pusher, is that you have to relate to a lot of total idiots - loudmouths and tough-guy wannabes who aren't afraid to "get nicked by old bill and thrown in the boob" (arrested by police and jailed). The unnamed main character of Connolly's flawless, lightning-swift pulp crime drama - rich in the language of the British underworld - is a smoothly diplomatic 29-year-old cocaine dealer who has earned a respected place among England's Mafia elite. He manages high-level trafficking with a tough old veteran partner, Mister Mortimer, a man who has seen his share of prison and deadly fights. Just as the young dealer is eyeing an early retirement from the business, big boss Jimmy Price hands down a tough assignment: find Charlotte Ryder, the missing rich princess daughter of Jimmy's old pal Edward, a powerful construction business player and gossip papers socialite. Complicating matters are two million pounds' worth of Grade A ecstasy, a brutal neo-Nazi sect and a whole series of double crossings. Navigating the many levels of the international underworld, Connolly convincingly chronicles his anti-hero's transformation from a turn-the-other-cheek diplomat to a revenge-charged hit man, setting his sights on anyone who stands in his way. It's the good bad guys against the bad bad guys in this brilliantly crafted, linguistically dense, European wise-guy tale, and readers will find themselves funning for the triumph of lesser evil.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Connolly's stunningly original debut tells the story of a young London gangster who is only 29 but has already made a mark for himself dealing drugs. His goal is to retire at 30 and spend his remaining years far from the danger and double-dealing of London's crime gangs. But like most high rollers, he finds it hard to walk away from "just one more" deal. His latest opportunity--unloading two million Ecstasy tablets--could be just the thing to top off his retirement fund. The deal's irresistible, but our hero soon finds himself undercut, double-crossed, hung out to dry, and struggling to survive. Connolly brilliantly captures the tawdry flamboyance, peculiar camaraderie, creepy characters, and flashpoint violence of the drug world, a place he makes both repugnant and strangely compelling. Even though the dialogue--a combination of drug jargon, vulgarities, British slang, and Cockneyisms--can be hard to grasp, and the plot is occasionally difficult to track, Connolly's slice of low life is utterly mesmerizing. A two-thumbs-up effort by a talented British newcomer. Emily Melton
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