I am a huge
fan of Parker, Junior Bender, and Wyatt, so I snapped up London Interrupted
(SpellBound Books, 2023), the first book about professional thief Danny Felix
by Irish author John A. Marley. Felix has had a successful career of robbing
post offices, betting shops, and banks without being nabbed once. His lucky
streak came to a screeching halt when Detective Inspector James Harkness caught
him with the proceeds of his latest burglary. The scene with the money-sniffing
dog was fun.
Instead of
being arrested and sent to jail, as Felix expected, Harkness wants him to steal
a large shipment of currency for him. Felix doesn’t like either of his options
-- prison or the clearly lunatic Harkness -- and begins to carefully plot a
course to escape both.
In the
meantime Inspector Christine Chance of the west London police station is
becoming suspicious of the recent run of good luck her team is encountering,
taking down one criminal enterprise after another, each yielding an eye-watering
amount of cash. While her colleagues simply assume that the wheel of fortune
has turned in their favor for a change, Chance can’t rid herself of the idea
that the arrests were set up somehow. Her attention is easily diverted these
days though, as her eleven-year-old daughter is fading away in a hospice unit,
where Chance is spending her nights.
Felix
arranges a once-in-a-lifetime, history-making robbery that does not go
according to anyone’s plan, including his.
I especially
enjoy the meticulous preparation that goes into these heists the fictional
professional robbers are always taking on. The intellect required to plot out a
detailed and operational scheme is considerable, requiring identification of
every conceivable thing that might go wrong. The body count in this book is
significantly more than I anticipated; even the Parker books, as grim as they
are, aren’t as lethal. Although it’s always a pleasure to see a crooked cop
taken out of action. Recommended, especially for fans of crime fiction where traditional
roles of good and bad actors are reversed.
·
Publisher: SpellBound Books (January 19, 2023)
·
Language: English
·
Paperback: 310 pages
·
ISBN-10: 1739297806
·
ISBN-13: 978-1739297800
Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2023
Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works
on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.
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