British author Banks fulfills the promise of 2000's The Big Blind
with this tough and assured crime novel. Callum Innes, recently released from prison, works as an unlicensed PI in Manchester, England. His brother, Declan, has gone home to Edinburgh to kick his heroin habit, and Innes is determined to stay straight this time as well. Morris Tiernan, local crime boss and Innes's former employer, however, insists that he complete one final job: tracking down the blackjack dealer who has disappeared with Tiernan's 16-year-old daughter, Alison, and a sizable chunk of his money. Complicating matters is Tiernan's son, Morris Junior (or “Mo”), a psychotic speed freak, who vows to overthrow his father's underworld reign. Mo despises Innes, envies the respect his father gives him and decides to show them both what he's really capable of. The results, inevitably, are both comically inept and violent. Some American readers may struggle a bit with Tiernan's street dialect, but like Ken Bruen and Allan Guthrie, Banks is updating the noir novel with an utterly original sensibility. (Jan.)
