The Reluctant Thief

The Reluctant Thief (revised edition)

What compels good people to do bad things? And how can they make right a world they have violated?

Tim Scott, at ease in his professional London life, has a chance encounter with Sanjay Roy, an old college friend with whom he shares a gruesome secret from the distant past. When Sanjay discovers that Tim's job provides him with high-level access to his company's finances, he uses this secret to draw Tim into his own world of corruption and casual brutality.

Tim is fascinated and repelled by the life that Sanjay opens up. But as he is sucked in, and as the consequences of his alliance spin out of control, he is forced to uncover a capacity for endurance - and violence - he never suspected he had.

Spanning the worlds of high finance and bare-knuckle streetfighting, of prostitution and classical music, The Reluctant Thief explores the ways in which the worlds of crime and violence touch upon ordinary lives. It examines the moral and psychological forces which compel people into crime - but which may also help them climb out of it.