Charlie Pegg is a police informer and a reliable one. He is also a carpenter and general handyman which gives him plenty of opportunities for picking up bits of information. He does some work at a block of luxury flats, thanks to his friend George Lewis who is porter there, and as a result often works in the penthouse flat belonging to local businessman and criminal James Berridge. Unfortunately this time his activities have led him into trouble and he is murdered one night in a dark alley.
Lambert and Hook have a pretty good idea from the start who ordered the killing but they need to prove it and prove which of Berridge’s muscle men did it. But Berridge is found shot dead in his car before they can unravel the case and work out what Pegg was going to tell them. This time no one wants to find the killer as everyone – police and associates – hated and feared the dead man but justice must be done.
I found this a tense well written crime novel with some interesting themes of justice and retribution. It shows how men who impose their will be violence often meet their untimely ends by violence. Lambert and Hook as ever work well together but DI Chris Rushton is starting to improve and together they all make a formidable team.
I recommend this series and the author’s Percy Peach series to anyone who likes their crime stories with not too much on the page violence and bad language. The novels can be read as standalone stories and both series can be read in any order.
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