Manor

The theme of honor among mobsters is itself an honorable one. But it's also a bit shopworn, and Watson breathes little new life into it in his debut. The Smiths are London's leading crime barons, but Dave Smith's old man is close to death and the family empire, suffering from its past refusal to enter the drug trade, is under siege. The Liverpool mob is in town for a spot of whoring on an up-market Thames barge. The Scots contingent, led by Mad Mick McGovern, is getting out of hand, and the pushy Americans, who want some of the U.K. drug trade, include Tony Valenti, who once caught Dave servicing his centerfold wife and isn't about to forget it. The book, which recalls Barrie Keeffe's The Long Good Friday (which was turned into an excellent film starring Bob Hoskins and Helen Mirren), features several scenes of nasty brutality, American accents of doubtful authenticity and a highway shooting that barely makes sense. The subtle moral distinctions that Watson attempts to make between the murderous, adulterous Dave and the rest of the criminal punters will likely elude most readers. Watson's characters fail to attain the vicious, strutting style or life that's required of a plot that is driven ultimately not by business schemings and turf wars but by a personal vendetta. (May)