New Crime & Mystery Fiction Titles From
Constable
08 Jan-March
New Crime & Mystery Fiction Titles From
Constable
JAN-MARCH 08
Dick Kirby
Villains
Pbk published March 2008 by Constable at £7.99
ISBN: 1845295692
See Review by
Carol Anne Davis
Author of Children Who Kill
Police officers are now no longer encouraged to talk to criminals, and that's a pity.Wonderful stories once were shared as a result of a quick pint with a snout down the pub, or as a respite during interrogation, when both copper and criminal would stop for a fag. Those were the glory days, where gripping accounts of slashings, fit-ups, dodgy deals, blaggings and petermen would filter through and become folklore. These days such intimacy is frowned upon (and smoking in interrogation cells is of course banned) so it is only here that these stories can be recounted.In "Villains' Tales" the reader will be introduced to the bad, the mad and the dangerous to know, recounted in gripping style by those who had intimate dealings with the shady characters, both criminal and copper, from London's underworld, long ago.All the usual suspects are here - the Krays, the Richardsons, plus a few surprises and several hidden gems. Literally.
This book describes a time in London's underworld which no longer exists. A time when detectives were encouraged to drink with crooks, gain their confidence and obtain information. In today's sanitized police forces, such amalgamations would be looked upon with horror and as a consequence, the modern day copper no longer hears tales of trade-offs, fit-ups, and `mugs' from the likes of strong-arm men, van draggers and Petermen.
But detectives from the 1970s did; men like the author of the book, Dick Kirby, and in acquiring top-grade information, he also collated a fund of stories.
The pages of this book contains all these stories, and more: episodes from the lives of Reggie & Ronnie Kray, the satanic temper of razor-wielding Billy Blythe and the astonishing resilience of Tommy (Scarface) Smithson. There are the stories of those who decided that prison life was not for them, and went `over the wall'; of those who were `at the corner', `at the creep' or `at the jump-up'. Informants, who infiltrated the ranks of the underworld and provided information to bring about their downfall, all for a variety of different reasons, feature everywhere.
The reader will marvel at the stories of con-men, armed blaggers and screwsmen, tremble at the rough justice meted out by the underworld bosses and unscrupulous cops alike and wonder at the world of dodgy deals where cops and crooks seemed to walk side-by-side.
All of the stories are shot through with Dick Kirby's acerbic, black humour, told in a compelling style by a detective who was there at the time, which promises to be unputdownable.
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Pat Mcintosh
The Rough Collier (Gil Cunningham Murder Mystery)
Published March 2008 by Constable at £18.99
ISBN: 1845294726
When the peat-cutters came to report the dead man, Gil Cunningham was up in the roof-space of his mother's house, teaching his new young wife swordplay.They believe the corpse to be that of a local missing man. His wife and the widow who runs the local coalmine are sure the body belongs to someone else, but then they find themselves accused of having killed him by witchcraft. And if the corpse is not the missing man, who is it?Gil and Alys try to get to the heart of the matter. Together they uncover more murders than they bargain for, and encounter the chilling secret at the heart of the mystery.
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