An all London complete gangland, good & bad cop. Page turner. Yep abit on important street language, a fast action mission for a pregnant woman. Its up to the moment, smooth, cool, easy to follow and calculated for all to get the rush. Billingham has done his homework on the police ettiquette, followed the books on law and the street law as well. Look out for the twist and turns it really adds to the suspense. Just a thoroughly good read.

I found this standalone novel by Mark Billingham to be as good as the rave reviews it received. He is any case a brlliant crime writer. This particular story grips you from start to finish and is so realistic and well-written. It is a brutally engaging book which mixes a fine whodunnit with the reality of brutal inner-city life among the street gangs from which there is no escape.

Violent criminals, big and small; some of them teenagers believing that they are much bigger than they actually are. London police, some straight and some crooked. This book contains non-stop action from the beginning, and the reader is continually trying to separate the good guys from the bad. It is easy to imagine that these are the sorts of events that are happening across London today. It certainly seems so from the news bulletins that I listen to, anyway. The reality will grip your attention, but you’ll need to accept the bad language as part of that reality.

I found this book rather disjointed and could easily given put it down at the halfway mark, although it did improve slightly in the second half. To be fair, the two main characters (Helen and Theo) are well written and the reader can empathise with their individual situations, but some events are fairly predictable, the promised twist is really no big surprise and the ending is very weak. I've enjoyed some of Mark Billingham's novels in the past and felt this was a bit of a let down in comparison. Very average.