Crack (Twin Towers Estate British Crime Thrillers) [Kindle Edition]

A good read -different ! a good insight into gang mentality and life on the streets worth a read! Very well written !!!

I have just finished reading Crack by Chris Barraclough, a young British writer to write a review of it on my blog ([...]) and have to report that I enjoyed every minute of it.

It literally starts with a bang, and then simply keeps going at a very rapid pace right up to the end, with almost no let up in the action, good fun too.

The main characters in this story, both good and bad, all lived for me, and obviously had lives outside the book - if you see what I mean. What is called a "back story" in America I believe. And as mentioned above, the events in this ebook describe in part, the frightening and mindless violence that took place in Britain a few months after its publication... I kept having to check the publication date to reassure myself that he hadn't in fact written this ebook after the riots.... But nope, he has put his finger all too accurately on what seems to me to have been the main cause of those riots.

So, while this ebook has the appearance of a simple thriller, it actually is much more than that, it is an examination of the effects of anomie in society, and the resulting breakdown in public order and values. Very scary stuff in fact.

Thus not a book about drug dealers as its title had led me to expect.

So if you like books that are written in the style of thrillers, but actually have much deeper ideas in them, then this is the book for you, but be prepared to have to read it in one go if possible, as its pace is so frenetic and the events pile up one on the other so rapidly that you wont want to put it down until you have finished it.

Written before the riots earlier in the year it turned out to be quite prophetic considering what happened. You follow the story of an individual policeman and how a tragic accident kicks off full scale rioting, and how/if he can escape the situation he finds himself in. The language and style is perfectly suited to the story. The dialogue is excellent and you easily find yourself rooting for the main character.
The important aspect of a Novella is to immerse the reader straight into the action, and the first thing that strikes you is the immediacy of the writing.
You are plunged straight into the action and it doesn't let up for the entire book. It is interspersed with newspaper commentaries on the situational backstory, which is very cleverly done.
The only negative comment I can make is about the subplot with the policeman's son. Subplots are hard enough to weave well into full novels, let alone the shorter form here. In my opinion it would either need expanding and made more relevant, or to be removed completely as the story is strong enough.
All in all though an excellent Novella and I'll be reading the writer's full novel 'Bat Boy' next.