Bill James
Book 5 of the Harpur & Iles Mysteries
Come Clean
A Harpur & Iles Mystery
"Le Carré-like psychological ambiguities and fierce double-crosses—from an author who, in an understated sentence or two, can pack a knockout punch."—Kirkus Reviews
Sarah Iles's latest young lover, Ian Aston, and the seedy gangland club he frequents both possess the intense attractive of the forbidden. When one night at the Monty they witness a fatal knifing, they unwittingly learn far too much for their own welfare of a deadly plot that could, if successfully executed, rearrange the city's criminal power structure. Immediately, the unfaithful wife and petty criminal become targets of both police and underworld observation.
The Machiavellian ACC Desmond Iles, Harpur's superior officer—a character Booklist calls "ranting, conniving, brutally sarcastic, and painfully funny"—has often taken the center stage in Bill James's novels. Here the betrayed policeman allows a professional crisis to become part of a personal vendetta as well, and Harput is swept direction into the path of escalting subterfuge and violence.
In Come Clean, Bill James once again explores the no-man's land of law enforcement, where human concern and naked expediency stand perennially at odds with each other. And just as in its four predecessors, a memorable drama is played out against James's striking and unique urban tableau.
"James lets his language soar with his criminals, characterizing mobsters like Benny Loxton and Leo Tacette in a mock-heroic style that confers dignity as well as absurdity on their aspirations for greatness."—Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review
"A crime thriller only on the surface, the book is complex, compelling, chilling and shocking—a combination of ethics commentary and pyschological character study. Bill James has been turning out quality mysteries for years, but here he steps up to a new level. A must-have."—ALA Booklist
Bill James has been called "the Elmore Leonard of Britain's underworld" (Kirkus Reviews) and has been named a "Master of Crime" in a mystery roundup by the London Sunday Times, which said, "There is nothing else quite like this series of police procedurals. James is concerned with the dilemmas and difficulties of policing Britain's inner cities, and he addresses these in hard-edged narratives that leave readers gasping and flinching, praying the people in these stories never come to live in their streets." In addition to the Harpur and Iles series, James is the author of other mystery series and a book on Anthony Powell. He lives in Wales.
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