Seven Seals, Seven Days by
Victor Headley
pbk out February 03
(NEL)
at £6.99
The girl has been shot seven times. By rights she should be dead, but she is
still alive, and the doctors at the hospital save her against all the odds. Then this
critically-ill patient just disappears from the intensive care ward as if by magic.
Which is just as well, because the gunman who shot her has come to finish the job.
Detective Louis Burrows is whistling in the dark trying to work out what is
happening when he can't even identify the victim. He doesn't know what the reader
does that the girl is Lisa Hanley, daughter of a dead Jamaican gangster, and sister to
Early, who has taken over his father's business. Early is now intent on revenge.
Headley describes a world of gangsters (or is it 'gangstas'?), where retribution
is swift and vicious. Lisa appears to have got involved in a law enforcement agency's
infiltration of the drugs racket belonging to Sal Scaffone, nephew of Mafia Don
Giuseppe Scaffone. In order to get to the truth, Early, struggling to keep his own
drugs empire under control, tortures and murders other gangsters. The money that
Lisa lost belongs to Colombian Enrique Sandoval, so Early is under pressure too.
Their colliding worlds are described in headlong, fast-paced prose where no gruesome
detail is spared. Suffice it to say, that the detective is left floundering as he tries to
keep pace with unfolding events, and the various gangs fall out one with the other,
and amongst themselves, as Early carves his way through those he holds responsible
for his sister's death.
The seven seals I suppose are the seven slugs that are extracted from the
unfortunate Lisa. No other revelation is evident. If you like dark stories with
characters of dubious morals, you will enjoy this book. And although I enjoyed it too,
I couldn't bring myself to like any of the characters. Even though Early toys with the
idea of leaving all his criminal activities behind, it's only a passing thought before
doing away with yet another person. Headley in his own epilogue to the book says he
wants us to see how Early and his father use brains and guts to overcome their
underprivileged position and make a place in the sun. I am left wondering whose
brains and guts they have used.
(
Ian Morson
Author of Falconer books and short listed for 1999 Ellis Peters Historical Crime Dagger)
