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DCI Harpur & his boss ACC Desmond Iles find their domain descending into bloody chaos as drug 'firms' fight for dominance. The long & profitable control of the illegal substances market is under threat, & a man in a fine suit is found with his throat cut. Luckily, Iles has been doing some illicit work himself.
- GenresMystery
208 pages
First published January 1, 2007
3 people are currently reading
21 people want to read
About the author
Bill James
61 books26 followersBill James (born 1929) is a pseudonym of James Tucker, a Welsh novelist. He also writes under his own name and the pseudonyms David Craig and Judith Jones. He was a reporter with the Daily Mirror and various other newspapers after serving with the RAF He is married, with four children, and lives in South Wales.
The bulk of his output under the Bill James pseudonym is the Harpur and Iles series. Colin Harpur is a Detective Chief Inspector and Desmond Iles is the Assistant Chief Constable in an unnamed coastal city in southwestern England. Harpur and Iles are complemented by an evolving cast of other recurring characters on both sides of the law. The books are characterized by a grim humour and a bleak view of the relationship between the public, the police force and the criminal element. The first few are designated "A Detective Colin Harpur Novel" but as the series progressed they began to be published with the designation "A Harpur & Iles Mystery".
His best known work, written under the "David Craig" pseudonym and originally titled Whose Little Girl are You, is The Squeeze, which was turned into a film starring Stacy Keach, Edward Fox and David Hemmings. The fourth Harpur & Iles novel, Protection, was televised by the BBC in 1996 as Harpur & Iles, starring Aneirin Hughes as Harpur and Hywel Bennett as Iles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_James_(novelist)
The bulk of his output under the Bill James pseudonym is the Harpur and Iles series. Colin Harpur is a Detective Chief Inspector and Desmond Iles is the Assistant Chief Constable in an unnamed coastal city in southwestern England. Harpur and Iles are complemented by an evolving cast of other recurring characters on both sides of the law. The books are characterized by a grim humour and a bleak view of the relationship between the public, the police force and the criminal element. The first few are designated "A Detective Colin Harpur Novel" but as the series progressed they began to be published with the designation "A Harpur & Iles Mystery".
His best known work, written under the "David Craig" pseudonym and originally titled Whose Little Girl are You, is The Squeeze, which was turned into a film starring Stacy Keach, Edward Fox and David Hemmings. The fourth Harpur & Iles novel, Protection, was televised by the BBC in 1996 as Harpur & Iles, starring Aneirin Hughes as Harpur and Hywel Bennett as Iles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_James_(novelist)
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
November 21, 2011
Another outsider is attempting to muscle in on the drug market controlled by Mansel Shale and Ralph Ember. Shale comes home from a golf game to his ex-rectory and finds his collection of Pre-Raphaelite paintings (quite a few of which are authentic) gone, and a body in an expensive suit, with its throat cut, on the landing. He calls the latest interloper, Hilaire Wilfrid Chandor, to inform him, rather cryptically that this is unacceptable, the several items must be returned and the other item disposed of with resulting stains cleaned up.
ACC Iles (described by Harpur's 15 year old daughter as a "feral loon") has been running an illegal tap on Shales's phone and hears the call, breaks into Shales house to see what happened. The dead body's girl friend arrives from London to look for her missing lover, enlisting the help of Harpur's daughters and a local reporter. Shale's wife, who has left him and the children to go off to Wales with another man (a greengrocer or psychiatrist or some such) decides to return and is suspicious of the redecorating.
From Detectives Beyond Borders
What makes the series great? Its delicious looks at the upward aspirations of its gangsters. Its funny, touching takes on family life. Its teaming of the vain, violent, ungovernable Iles and his partner, Harpur, who sometimes deflects and sometimes slyly returns Iles' insults, yet who is capable of betrayals of his own. Its "brilliant combination of almost Jacobean savagery and sexual betrayal with a tart comedy of contemporary manners," according to John Harvey, who ought to know a thing or two about crime fiction. And the beauty of the writing:
The series ...becomes a kind of grand and cracked portrait of Britain's shifting urban and social landscape at the end of the twentieth century, of the murky boundaries between police and criminals, of suburban social climbers who happen to be killers and drug dealers, of the strange ways people build families in changing times. The books are violent, dark, and often very funny. And their author just happens to be the best prose stylist who has ever written crime fiction in English.
© Peter Rozovsky 2008
ACC Iles (described by Harpur's 15 year old daughter as a "feral loon") has been running an illegal tap on Shales's phone and hears the call, breaks into Shales house to see what happened. The dead body's girl friend arrives from London to look for her missing lover, enlisting the help of Harpur's daughters and a local reporter. Shale's wife, who has left him and the children to go off to Wales with another man (a greengrocer or psychiatrist or some such) decides to return and is suspicious of the redecorating.
From Detectives Beyond Borders
What makes the series great? Its delicious looks at the upward aspirations of its gangsters. Its funny, touching takes on family life. Its teaming of the vain, violent, ungovernable Iles and his partner, Harpur, who sometimes deflects and sometimes slyly returns Iles' insults, yet who is capable of betrayals of his own. Its "brilliant combination of almost Jacobean savagery and sexual betrayal with a tart comedy of contemporary manners," according to John Harvey, who ought to know a thing or two about crime fiction. And the beauty of the writing:
The series ...becomes a kind of grand and cracked portrait of Britain's shifting urban and social landscape at the end of the twentieth century, of the murky boundaries between police and criminals, of suburban social climbers who happen to be killers and drug dealers, of the strange ways people build families in changing times. The books are violent, dark, and often very funny. And their author just happens to be the best prose stylist who has ever written crime fiction in English.
© Peter Rozovsky 2008
July 22, 2012
Gave up. Found the dialogue stilted & the characters unsympathetic
March 13, 2013
Gave up. Needed a glossary to make sense of the dialogue. Found the detectives irritating
and unlikeable.
and unlikeable.
November 3, 2020
I found the style of writing very difficult to follow. The appalling grammar was grating; it was difficult to know how an editor could let it pass. The use of the word "of" instead of "have" was something which I had only seen in dialogue in other books but was used all the time here. I gave up on this book only half way through.
November 8, 2023
Pix, Bil James (crime, mystery)
Jeff Book Review #196
A 2008 English crime novel, "Pix" starts with a fancy London drug kingpin robbed of some artwork and a dead body is left on his stairs. He calls another crime boss and tells him to bring his paintings back and clean up the dead body and it moves into a detective story as two detectives enter the proceedings and investigate it as an escalating local underground neighborhood turf conflict.
I see someone called James "the Elmore Leonard of London's underworld" but I don't agree after reading Pix. There's a lot of repetitive dialogue and back-pedaling; criminals, couples, and cops circling around nonsensical quips. It was like that time I flipped past a Gilmore Girls episode for a minute and got a massive headache. Only this was nonsensical English snob speak instead of nonsensical teen girl-speak.
'I ran across Chandor at lunchtime.'
'In what sense?'
'In what sense what, sir?'
'"Ran across."'
'Yes, ran across,' Harpur replied.
'You are not someone who runs across people, Harpur. You scheme. This was schemed?'
'He likes it here.'
'Why?'
'The ambience,' Harpur said.
'Yes, plenty of that around. This is the thing about ambience. It's ambient. You fret in case the Goss woman makes herself a target?'
'Of course.'
'Why you ran across him? Yes, it could be grim, Col. She sounds wonderful. Devoted.'
'I think so.'
Iles said: 'I wonder if anyone would come looking for me if I disappeared, Col? I wonder, I wonder.'
'Are you thinking of going, sir? People would definitely notice.'
'Which?'
'Which what, sir?'
'Which people would notice I'd gone?'
'Oh, many.'
'Can you name them?'
'Many, sir. I'd probably need both hands off the wheel to finger a count.'
'Why do I need this constant reassurance, Harpur?'
'A foolish yet becoming modesty, sir.'
'Yes, it could be that.'
'A selling of yourself short.'
'Yes.'
'Many have noticed this.'
'Who?'
'Many.'
Verdict: Blech. I quit on page 130 of 208.
Jeff's Rating: 0 / 5 (Horrible)
movie rating if made into a movie: R
Jeff Book Review #196
A 2008 English crime novel, "Pix" starts with a fancy London drug kingpin robbed of some artwork and a dead body is left on his stairs. He calls another crime boss and tells him to bring his paintings back and clean up the dead body and it moves into a detective story as two detectives enter the proceedings and investigate it as an escalating local underground neighborhood turf conflict.
I see someone called James "the Elmore Leonard of London's underworld" but I don't agree after reading Pix. There's a lot of repetitive dialogue and back-pedaling; criminals, couples, and cops circling around nonsensical quips. It was like that time I flipped past a Gilmore Girls episode for a minute and got a massive headache. Only this was nonsensical English snob speak instead of nonsensical teen girl-speak.
'I ran across Chandor at lunchtime.'
'In what sense?'
'In what sense what, sir?'
'"Ran across."'
'Yes, ran across,' Harpur replied.
'You are not someone who runs across people, Harpur. You scheme. This was schemed?'
'He likes it here.'
'Why?'
'The ambience,' Harpur said.
'Yes, plenty of that around. This is the thing about ambience. It's ambient. You fret in case the Goss woman makes herself a target?'
'Of course.'
'Why you ran across him? Yes, it could be grim, Col. She sounds wonderful. Devoted.'
'I think so.'
Iles said: 'I wonder if anyone would come looking for me if I disappeared, Col? I wonder, I wonder.'
'Are you thinking of going, sir? People would definitely notice.'
'Which?'
'Which what, sir?'
'Which people would notice I'd gone?'
'Oh, many.'
'Can you name them?'
'Many, sir. I'd probably need both hands off the wheel to finger a count.'
'Why do I need this constant reassurance, Harpur?'
'A foolish yet becoming modesty, sir.'
'Yes, it could be that.'
'A selling of yourself short.'
'Yes.'
'Many have noticed this.'
'Who?'
'Many.'
Verdict: Blech. I quit on page 130 of 208.
Jeff's Rating: 0 / 5 (Horrible)
movie rating if made into a movie: R
May 25, 2010
It's not really about the plot in the Harpur & Iles series, but all the peripherals. The dialogue is sensational (which people? yes, many). The comical obsession with haberdashery is delightful. The fixation on various details, in this case, the alleged spilled sauce makes this series unlike any other.
March 24, 2013
I enjoyed the early Harpur and Iles books but for some reason most of the later ones never made my local library. I was pleased to find this one even though I had read some of the ones which came out after this which meant I knew which characters would still be alive at the end. A lot of this book is driven by the dialogue but it is still a compelling read and I read it in two sittings.
July 19, 2013
This book only manages a 2 because I was able to finish it, although it was very laborious process. Having not read anything else in the series, I felt punished for daring to pick up this book and stumble my way through the plot. I didn't feel anything towards the characters, and the story didn't keep my attention. For a 208 page book, it felt a lot longer than that.
March 29, 2013
Maybe the funniest one of the whole series. Manse Shale is rounding out nicely as a character.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews