Tangled Web UK Review June 2009
If It Bleeds by
Duncan Campbell
hbk out March 09
Published by Headline Review
at £17.99
A very entertaining book, an easy read with plenty of wit and wry humour. The author is steeped in the theme of the book, as he was crime correspondent for The Guardian and the story concerns Laurie Lane, a middle-aged journalist with the same job on a fictitious London newspaper. His obnoxious editor feels he is over the hill and is trying to shunt him into becoming the motoring correspondent, using threats about his having fiddled his expenses to blackmail him out office.
Just before he gets the push, one of the last London gangsters, Charlie Hook, is found shot and Laurie covers the case for his paper, getting far more involved than he expected. A Russian millionaire is accused of the crime and Laurie is sent out to Bangkok to interview him, where the Russian also ends up dead.
The plot twists and turns and though being rather unlikely, is so well-written that who cares? The book demonstrates that writers are best at writing about what they know well and the descriptions of what journalists get up are very realistic – endless hanging about crime scenes with paper cups of coffee and fags, blank receipts from taxi-drivers, enthusiastic drinking and shattered home lives! He relates some cracking jokes, no doubt picked up from his more disreputable colleagues.
A good read, no flash-backs and no psychological breast-beating.
( Bernard
Knight ex Home Office Pathologist and
author of the highly acclaimed Crowner John series)
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