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Vince Treadwell #3
Exit The Thief by Danny Miller
When Vince Treadwell spots a famous jewel thief in Soho one night and the next day reads about a daring robbery at the Ritz, he takes it upon himself to investigate the case as the missing jewels belong to the beautiful French movie star Capuchine, with whom Vince is smitten.But it soon leads to murder - and he is the chief suspect. In prison and looking at a life sentence, Vince is offered a lifeline from his old friend at Interpol, Ray Dryden. He wants Vince to go undercover and return the jewels to the movie star, who is secretly dating hotshot producer, Carlo Messina. But in reality Messina is one of the biggest gangsters in Marseille , running a heroin pipeline to America.So after a daring prison escape, and armed with fake jewels, Vince finds himself on the French Riviera - and it just happens to be the eve of the 1965 Cannes film festival. Against the backdrop of movie star glamour, Vince soon finds himself embroiled in a deadly game of cat and mouse with the charismatic and psychotic criminal; a man for whom movies and reality are indivisible, and murder and mayhem are on the script.
Paperback
First published March 20, 2014
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About the author
Danny Miller
40 books16 followersMiller is a successful Brighton-born playwright and scriptwriter who has written scripts for the National Theatre Studio, the BBC, ITV and Channel 4. His debut novel, Kiss Me Quick was shortlisted for the prestigious 2011 Crime Writers Association Daggers Award.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
March 31, 2014
This is the third crime novel featuring Detective Vince Treadwell. Set in 1965, “Exit the Thief,” follows on from “Kiss Me Quick” and “The Gilded Edge.” Although this can be read as a stand-alone story, with a series such as this, I always feel it is better to read the books in order and understand the history of the characters and the people and places that surround them. After the Gilded Edge Affair, Vince is suspended from duty and awaiting a disciplinary hearing. When we catch up to him in this novel he is kicking his heels in London, broke and frankly fed up.
During an evening out with friends he runs into prolific jewel thief Murray the Head. Later, he discovers it was the same evening that the beautiful actress, Capucine, had her jewels stolen from her hotel suite at the Ritz. His attempts to locate Murray the Head and discover whether he was involved in the robbery leads to unwanted interest from gangster Billy Hill. To his surprise, Vince is asked to do some work for Billy Hill and events escalate until he suddenly finds he is accused of murder (the fact he is suspected for murder unfolds at the very beginning of the book).
As Vince tells the story of how he ended up in a house, with a dead body, you realise (as does Vince himself) that both the police and the criminals view him with suspicion. His ability to straddle both worlds lead to him being given the opportunity to go undercover in Cannes and help his old friend Ray Dryden, from Interpol, investigate Jean-Jacques Messina – bank robber, informer, drug supplier to the American mafia and lover of actress Capucine. For Messina is branching out in the movie business and where better to do so than at Cannes on the French Riviera – that “sunny place for shady people,” as W. Somerset Maugham termed it?
During this book there are all kinds of fun cameo appearances by real people such as Tony Curtis and John Lennon (although I couldn’t quite believe he would call even Dick Lester, “my old mucker”). Meanwhile, this novel finds Vince Treadwell careering from the dismal surroundings of a prison cell to the sunshine and opulence of Cannes, unsure of what side he is working for and finding it hard to be anything other than a policeman. It is not Vince’s nature to stand back, but being undercover puts him into situations of both extreme violence and moral uncertainty. As with the previous books, the author recreates the period of the Sixties sublimely and there is a real sense of time and place that help make this series work. Vince is a wonderful character and this is a series that is certainly getting better with each book and one I highly recommend.
During an evening out with friends he runs into prolific jewel thief Murray the Head. Later, he discovers it was the same evening that the beautiful actress, Capucine, had her jewels stolen from her hotel suite at the Ritz. His attempts to locate Murray the Head and discover whether he was involved in the robbery leads to unwanted interest from gangster Billy Hill. To his surprise, Vince is asked to do some work for Billy Hill and events escalate until he suddenly finds he is accused of murder (the fact he is suspected for murder unfolds at the very beginning of the book).
As Vince tells the story of how he ended up in a house, with a dead body, you realise (as does Vince himself) that both the police and the criminals view him with suspicion. His ability to straddle both worlds lead to him being given the opportunity to go undercover in Cannes and help his old friend Ray Dryden, from Interpol, investigate Jean-Jacques Messina – bank robber, informer, drug supplier to the American mafia and lover of actress Capucine. For Messina is branching out in the movie business and where better to do so than at Cannes on the French Riviera – that “sunny place for shady people,” as W. Somerset Maugham termed it?
During this book there are all kinds of fun cameo appearances by real people such as Tony Curtis and John Lennon (although I couldn’t quite believe he would call even Dick Lester, “my old mucker”). Meanwhile, this novel finds Vince Treadwell careering from the dismal surroundings of a prison cell to the sunshine and opulence of Cannes, unsure of what side he is working for and finding it hard to be anything other than a policeman. It is not Vince’s nature to stand back, but being undercover puts him into situations of both extreme violence and moral uncertainty. As with the previous books, the author recreates the period of the Sixties sublimely and there is a real sense of time and place that help make this series work. Vince is a wonderful character and this is a series that is certainly getting better with each book and one I highly recommend.
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