A man's been found battered to death in a seedy room in Stockwell. Nothing unusual about that, except that the victim is Chief Inspector Roberts's brother, Tony. They've not spoken for a decade, but still, family's family, and revenge is something Roberts can relate to. Across the patch, Detective Sergeant Brant visits his snitch, Spiros, on the trail of merciless Irish gangster Tommy Logan, a ruthless low-life with 'no respect for the police or for anybody.' Meanwhile, WPC Falls - black and pretty - is staked out as decoy for the Clapham Rapist, a serial attacker with the hots for Afro-Caribbean women. This final segment of Ken Bruen's masterful 'White' Trilogy is a potent tale of revenge, double-crossing and violence, combining black humour with nail-biting tension and characters The Sopranos would kill for.

Ken Bruen hails from the west of Ireland and divides his time between south London and Galway. His past includes drunken brawls in Vietnam, a stretch of four months in a south American gaol, a PhD in metaphysics and four of the most acclaimed crime novels of the decade.