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Rating: 
Summary: dark
Review: A dark, dark view of human nature. Written with sufficient skill to keep me turning the pages through to the finish, but the complete lack of a payoff left me furious for having wasted my time on this book. In the end I did something highly unusual for me, I chucked it in the fireplace in frustration and anger.I need characters I can root for; good guys who win in the end. There was no such character in this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Tale of a Crooked Cop
Review: Another of the adventures of Harpur and Iles, British detectives supreme, and their age-impaired boss Lane. The heavy in this case is Mansel Shale, top banana in the local drug trade. A territorial battle goes awfully wrong, and a 13 year old carrier girl is shot and killed. This is entirely too much not only for the police, but also for the drug traders. The hunt is on for the perpetrator. The book is funny, but moves awfully slow. You get the impression that the author is tired of always rehashing the same characters, finding very little new to say about them. Nevertheless, it is a pleasant read.
Rating:
Summary: Tale of a Crooked Cop
Review: Another of the adventures of Harpur and Iles, British detectives supreme, and their age-impaired boss Lane. The heavy in this case is Mansel Shale, top banana in the local drug trade. A territorial battle goes awfully wrong, and a 13 year old carrier girl is shot and killed. This is entirely too much not only for the police, but also for the drug traders. The hunt is on for the perpetrator. The book is funny, but moves awfully slow. You get the impression that the author is tired of always rehashing the same characters, finding very little new to say about them. Nevertheless, it is a pleasant read.
Rating: 
Summary: Another winning entry of Bill James with Harpur and Iles
Review: I have read every entry in James' series starring Harpur and Iles, and loved every one. His villains (hard to distinguish from the coppers) are the best in the business--and their dialogue sparkles! You can almost hear Bob Hoskins and Michael Caine sparring with each other had any of these been made into movies(why haven't they?) And Harpur and the rapier tongued Iles, they are absolutely marvelous--a couple of coppers not above planting evidence(in earlier books) breaking and entering and so on, all in the name of justice(?)I have been big fan of Elmore Leonard for years and still am, but when it comes to dialogue and witty repartee, James is in a CLASS BY HIMSELF!!
Rating:
Summary: Deep Noir
Review: I'm hooked on these Harpur and Iles mysteries. They are unlike anything else out there in the genre of contemporary tough Brit dicks... even the best of the authors(Rankin, Harvey)pale in comparison. & Top Banana by Bill James might be the best of the bunch(pun intended)he's written. The truly weird relationship Harpur and Iles have is almost perfectly mirrored in the two drug lords Mansel Shale and Alf Ivis. Shale and Iles can see into the future or to put it another way they can telescope current events into accurate guesses of what will happen next, or who is behind a murder. I've been absolutely zealous pushing these books on my friends to read and often they'll say the books are too dark or too weird but hey, post-9-11 it's all too dark and weird so there's this congruency, this perfect fit. Try it. It's a 50-50 proposition Bill James either scores deep or is totally wrong for you.There's certainly nothing middling about this authors work.
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