- Paperback: 288 pages
- Publisher: Pan Books; New edition edition (5 May 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0330373749
- ISBN-13: 978-0330373746
- Product Dimensions: 17.6 x 11 x 2.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,928,324 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
Harpur and Iles have previously come tragically unstuck with a sting on the drug gangs - which resulted in the murder of their undercover officer. But pushed by the mentally fragile Chief Superintendent Lane they are going to try again.
From the Author
With the publication of KILL ME in paperback next year, there are now seventeen books in the Harpur and Iles series. I publish one a year and very occasionally two. The next, PAY DAYS, comes out in hardback in 2001 in the UK and the US. I had no idea when I started in the mid-1980s that the series would run to this number. I won't say, as some authors do, that the characters took over. But having established my pair, I'm reluctant to waste them, in any sense. I'll probably go to at least twenty.
They are two high-ranking police officers. Harpur, the main figure by a whiker, is a detective chief superintendent, and Iles, his boss, an Assistant Chief Constable. In an unnamed English city, they fight organised crime - mainly drug dealing - through their own, not always wholly legal methods. In particular, Iles's unspoken work philosophy is 'the end justifies the means'. He is believed to have murdered two villains who got off in court after killing an undercover detective (see HALO PARADE). This episode constantly recurs in his thinking (see IN GOOD HANDS and ETON CROP) Neither he nor Harpur is on the take, but they'll do almost anthing to put away some of those they believe crooked (and whom the reader knows are crooked): only some - Iles runs alliances with a few Mr Bigs for the sake of peace on the street, to the nattering despair of his Chief. Harpus does try to control Iles's savagery now and then, without notable success. Harpur's moral authority over Iles is flimsy, not just because he is lower in rank, but because he has had an affair with Iles's wife, and Iles knows it.
My aim in these books is to humanise as much as I can both crooks and cops: that is, to give them full characterisation, not put them in roles as representatives of evil and good. This can bring them very close on the ethical scale and, I hope, produces good suspense and, above all, much not necessarily comfortable laughter. The reviewers who please me most find the books not only taut but funny.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
Iles said: 'Harpur's going to tell you about a lad called Raymond Street.' Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
Iles said: 'Harpur's going to tell you about a lad called Raymond Street.' Read the first page
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Concordance
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Paperback
This is Reservoir Dogs as directed by Arthur Mallard, and all the better for it. The Harpur and Iles series is out on its own in terms of style, wit, characterisation and plotting. Sometimes off-the-wall, a bit of a soap opera, intrinsically unbelievable and laughably perverse, I suppose you'd either love or hate the whole brew. Personally, I love it, and can't wait for the next installment.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
2 reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
worth sticking with
20 April 2000
Format:Hardcover
This is a well written technical mystery which takes some time to get involved with .Then it becomes a page turner and climaxes beautifully into a highly original conclusion.The writing is ian banks/raymond chandler and should be read by those interested in original modern storytelling.
Just got silly
19 Jan 2012
Format:Paperback
A Harpur and Iles novel involving the placing of a undercover policewoman into local drug gangs.
Iles is still very funny and bent, Harpur seems to put up with it but at the end of the book , I just asked myself, what was the point, it just got silly and I knew I had wasted my time.
Iles is still very funny and bent, Harpur seems to put up with it but at the end of the book , I just asked myself, what was the point, it just got silly and I knew I had wasted my time.
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