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Donald Thomas
Red Flower for Blue Lady
Published March 2000 by Macmillan at £16.99
ISBN: 0333781546
Artwork by: Jacket photograph: Corbis & Edward Holub/Photonica
It is 1936. A year in which the British Establishment will be rocked by the Abdication Crisis.
And in his own kingdom, gangland capo Sonny Tarrant has a thorny problem. to sort out. With his partner'Manny' Manders, Tarrant has been running a successful money laundering operation. But this scheme is threatened by three small-time thieves thinking big ...
For would-be gangsters Sandboy, McGouran and Gillis have carried out a raid on the premises of furrier Pelly Pender - which has led to the death of Pender's wife. Under Tarrant's protection, Pender insists to the police that no attack took place, for he knows the trio will face a different justice - in which the law plays no part.
Sandboy, by day a cinema projectionist, soon finds himself caught in a nightmare world of informers and killers, a world in which Tarrant manipulates his victims with the deftness of a flick-knife.
His last hope is Yvonne Manders, once the stage-dancer'Lady Blue' . . .
Donald Thomas is an acclaimed novelist, poet, playwright and biographer. His poems Points of Contact won the Eric Gregory Award, his biography Robert Browning was runner-up for the Whitbread Award, and The Victorian Underworld was shortlisted for a CWA Gold Dagger Award in 1998. Among his documentary drama, he has written two series of The Detectives for the BBC.
Donald Thomas is also the author of the Inspector Swain series of Victorian mysteries, including The Arrest of Scotland Yard and The Ripper's Apprentice, and his most recent crime novel is The Secret Cases of Sherlock Holmes. Sonny Tarrant first appeared in Dancing in the Dark, which was published in 1992.
