Bad for Good

A somewhat uneven police procedural story. There are some very good parts to this - the way that corruption high up is woven into the story creates for some interesting tensions. However, it doesn't seem to know whether it wants to be a political police procedural thriller or a Hollywood style guns blazing all action thing. I am not sure the Hollywood ending is doing the story any favours in the long run...

The setting is an interesting one for me - Brighton is a place I am familiar with and several of the places mentioned I know reasonably well. Whilst there is crime here it is not exactly the crime capital of the UK. The pressures on policing with regards to budget cuts are definitely a hot topic and the author obviously speaks from a place of knowledge. With regards to corruption in the forces, it is dealt with in an interesting way. The location of the story and its contents do become a bit jarring. There is quite a brutal story buried in here, but it is the firefight at the end that really bugs me. This is an extremely American style piece of action and feels supremely unrealistic in a UK setting.

The first few chapters are somewhat confusing with the POV jumping around a lot. This settles down as the book progresses and the prose becomes an engaging and readable affair. The characters are mostly well written, although I think having Phil Cooke as the Police Chief made some of his later actions less believable and more frustrating. I do feel that if the desire for the Hollywood ending had been reigned in a bit this would have been a very good crime novel.