Reading this book is similar to smoking cigarettes. The first few times you pick it up, it doesn't leave a good flavour in your mouth. Quickly putting it down, only to pick it up again at a later date. Each time reading a little more than the previous time. Before you know it your chain smoking, turning page after page to see what happens next. It sure is a dirty habit. Gritty and grimey with a hard taste. It's not for those with a weak stomach.
I thought I was done and had kicked the habit. Years later I'm still thinking about this book. If street crime thrillers are your marlboro lights, then I would strongly suggest lighting up. If you don't like it after the first 100 pages, crack a beer and keep reading, you will soon be hooked.
After 50 pages I was thoroughly bored - chapter after chapter of introducing characters. Frank Newton keeps popping up, but otherwise no plotline of any kind emerges. Half of the other characters are violently killed. Chapters average at 5 pages length - supposedly to give a feel of fast-paced suspense. I realised that it was just the setting of something bigger to come. It just wasn't very interesting. After 70 pages all the small-time crooks finally met up with Frank Newton, to discuss the coming job. "Aha," I thought, "finally something is going to happen!". 50 pages after that still nothing much. Nope, pointless violence, no plot, not for me!
Slow start but second half zips along. Quite a simple but enjoyable crime thriller, though nothing really new and no real twists so not one of his best.
Nothing special, a good Summer Holiday read. Gritty and pulpy, like the heads of a lot of the characters who find themselves on the wrong end of shotguns.