Kilo 17

by Harry Ferguson

KILO 17 gives the inside story of a close-knit Customs team during a major drugs investigation. Like all investigations it mixes long and often frustrating bouts of patient observation with exhilarating moments of high-speed action and fear. It is also the story of how the 'Kilo' team's initial hostility to an outsider in their midst turned to acceptance and friendship. As an Oxford-educated, former member of MI6, Harry is promoted straight over the heads of more experienced officers. But with no previous experience of the drugs world, the Kilos think they need Harry like a hole in the head. Traditionally working in a team of 15, the Kilos give him the call-sign number '17', partly out of respect for a colleague killed in the line of duty, partly to make sure Harry knows his place. But Harry sticks at the job and begins to make progress with his investigation into the affairs of Frank Davies, the local Mister Big. And in the long desperate hunt for evidence, involving a transit van smashing through the front window of an Indian restaurant, chance tip-offs, a moonlit search for a missing ex-SAS soldier, a dawn raid on a fortress-like country house and barely legal flights by light aircraft to Holland, the Kilos begin to chip away at Frank Davies's criminal empire.

288 pages, Paperback

First published June 7, 2004

Reviews

[Robbie]

The opening chapter describes a car chase through London.

Not that secret a war when you mount pavements littered with pedestrians in the hope of maintaining an eyeball on the drug smuggler.
This reads like Jason Bourne movie or worse still an episode of The Sweeney.
Mounting the kerb to chase down a speeding drug-runner, in London. What happens when you clip the legs of poor, old, Mrs Smith, put her on her backside and fracture her pelvis, which leads to her death 3 weeks later with her daughter and son-in-law holding her hand? Or worse still, take out a pram with one-year-old in it? In London? Not Moscow. Not Beijing. Not Pyongyang. London!!!!
What would the papers do: a former MI6 officer was found to be the navigator in car that killed a child, yesterday whilst speeding along the pavement of Lower Thames Street. Can't put a D-Notice on that. They would have a field-day and the former MI6 officer would be in court within a matter of days.
You would need a change of career after that, because MI6 would wash their hands of you.
Smuggling drugs ultimately ruins lives. So does driving around London, whilst breaking every traffic law in the book.
I used to drive an ambulance and I've been a student on the Extremely Fast And Dangerous [EFAD]course. Now and then, we drive people to hospital that have mere minutes to live. No one in the UK, regardless of the colour of their uniform, or the secret organisation they work for, is permitted to mount the kerb.
It gets no better. I stuck with it, but to suggest that standing beside an HGV in a motorway services lorry-park at dark-o'clock when wearing a business suit is an acceptable strategy when trying to maintain covert surveillance is laughable. What will you do when challenged, tell the unshaven gorilla in the donkey jacket that you're struggling with your sexuality?
I picked this up for 50 cents at the market. I don't read comic books, so yes, I feel robbed.
Mind, I did have a good chuckle whilst writing this; maybe I did get my 50 cents worth from it.

[Trevor · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good this! The first page draws you right in, a car chase right from the get-go.

This is the story of Harry Ferguson, an MI6 "operative" turned Customs Officer.

This true story tells the tale of Customs trying to bust cannabis "importer" Frank Davies.