- Paperback: 336 pages
- Publisher: Harvest Books; Reprint edition (Nov 2002)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0156026937
- ISBN-13: 978-0156026932
- Product Dimensions: 20.4 x 13.7 x 2 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 3,771,586 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
'Brilliant ... you won't be able to put it down.' -- Mark Sanderson, Sunday Telegraph Summer Reading 'Many thought that Jake Arnott's debut, THE LONG FIRM, was good but not quite as good as the hype tried to convince us it was. Frankly, Hemingway, Hammett and Greene together would have been hard pressed to come up with anything that good. His eagerly awaited follow-up, HE KILLS COPPERS, has arrived - and it's better.' -- Time Out
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
August 1966, the long hot summer of World Cup euphoria is suddenly shattered by a brutal crime that shocks a nation seemingly at ease with itself. Three characters' fates are irrevocably bound up with this event and consequences that reverberate across three decades. An ambitious detective dragged into intrigues of corruption. A gutter press journalist with a nose for a nasty story. And a disaffected petty criminal pushed over the edge by a violent crime that haunts him. An epic story that looks at morality and corruption on both sides of the law and at the very heart of the state.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
Billy's hand rested against the trunk of a tree. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
Billy's hand rested against the trunk of a tree. Read the first page
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
7 reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
I loved this book!
22 Jan 2002
Format:Hardcover
The writing is so excellent & London is done with the acuity of Dickens. Arnott's depiction of Great Britain teetering toward dissolution is truly amazing, like a Red Giant about to blow.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
fabulous
7 Feb 2002
Format:Hardcover
I've been on a London binge: LONDON FIELDS (M. Amis), CAPITAL (M. Duffy), and now HE KILLS COPPERS. So good I read it one sitting. And like passive people everywhere I am into detail, which Arnott provides so artfully. Especially good is an English soccer riot. What do you call these guys? Hooligans? Rude boys? Anyway, this mass-spectacle is right up there with DeLillo's awesome crowd episodes: the Moonie wedding at Yankee Stadium in MAO II, the epic Giants game in UNDERWORLD. So satisfying.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Muddled and, ultimately, disappointing
26 Feb 2003
Format:Hardcover
I loved The Long Firm; it was wonderful. So, naturally, I bought author Arnott's second book, He Kills Coppers. After the opening sequence, I started to wonder if I was having an extended senior moment (age often has nothing to do, I've discovered, with those senior moments. A tedious book can induce them; so can bad rap music.) I couldn't figure out which character was which, what was happening, or why.
This is a book that could have used some serious definition, instead of simply placing asterisks between sections. Those asterisks, one learns after much confusion, indicate a shift to another character. And some of the characters are written in third person, some in the first. As well, the copy-editing leaves much to be desired. (Who's instead of whose was one of my favorite goofs.) References to both Beatniks and hippies in supposedly the same era distorts the time frame--Beatniks were of the 50s, hippies of the latter 60s and early 70s. So it's not only hard to jump from one character to the next, it's also tough figuring out the era.
At moments, the book leaps to life and for twenty or thirty pages it becomes gripping. Then the grip eases and we're back in the muddle--reading of characters about whom it's hard to care; killers, cops, thugs of every stripe. And, finally, an ending that leaves one thinking, "So what?"
A very disappointing effort.
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