- Hardcover: 224 pages
- Publisher: Macmillan; 1st ed edition (25 Aug 1995)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0333645715
- ISBN-13: 978-0333645710
- Product Dimensions: 21.8 x 13.7 x 2.5 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 750,341 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Product Description
The 12th Harpur and Iles novel. When Kenward Knapp's drug-dealing empire comes up for grabs, Harpur finds himself caught in the middle of the scramble to take over. A scramble which leads to two brutal armed robberies and cold-blooded murder.
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 whisker, 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: hat 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. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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First Sentence
When someone as grand and profitable as Oliphant Kenward Knapp was suddenly taken out of the business scene, you had to expect a bloody big rush to grab his domain, bloody big meaning not just bloody big, but big and very bloody. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
When someone as grand and profitable as Oliphant Kenward Knapp was suddenly taken out of the business scene, you had to expect a bloody big rush to grab his domain, bloody big meaning not just bloody big, but big and very bloody. Read the first page
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2 reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Vintage Bill James
15 Feb 2001
Format:Hardcover
A police procedural from the master of the genre. Hard edged narrative, terse dialogue. Bleak, cynical plot and characters expressed in an almost poetic style. The story is compelling and the characters unforgettable.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Thin Line between cop and criminal--excellent
5 Mar 2001
Format:Hardcover
In THE DETECTIVE IS DEAD, Bill James writes again of the thinline between cop and criminal. When a judge lets two killers walkfree, Ives decides the police need to take matters into his ownhands. The results aren't pretty although they are occasionallyhysterically funny and always disturbing.
Mark Lane, the chief, isnoble, believes in doing right, and is a figure of fun for his deputyIves. The criminals believe Ives is dirty--that he is making moneyfrom the very drug lords they are seeking to become--and the reader isnever quite sure if they are right. Harpur is more practical,interested in solving crimes and locking up criminals but lackingeither Lane's nobility or Ives' brutal thrust.
This is policeprocedural with a twist. There is never any doubt about thecriminal--there are plenty of those and much of the story is told fromtheir point of view. Some of them will succeed in their dreams ofbecoming the next drug lord, others will fall. Ives knows he can'tarrest them all and so, by default, becomes something of akingmaker. Watching him work, interact with Lane, Harpur, and thecriminals, makes the novel fascinating.
Each of the Harpur and Ivesmysteries can be read independently without losing much although theydo form a continuous and enjoyable series.
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