For crime's sake!

London has been taken over by gangsters muscling in on various territories, edging out the last of the old-world godfathers of crime, Charlie Hook, who now wants to write a tell-all autobiography. He invites crime reporter Laurie Lane to ghost-write it for him, but before Lane can say yea or nay, Hook is murdered, the murder weapon found in the garden of a Russian criminal-come-lately. Is the Russian, who’s fled London, the murderer, or is it a plant?

A lead from a former criminal but current quiz enthusiast gets Lane to the Russian, who is then murdered — or is he? — in Thailand, but the story doesn’t end there. At the newspaper, a new editor is a sign of changing times, when reporters are expected to do the whole multimedia thing, else audit can start examining expenses a little too closely for comfort, and redundancy parties are on the increase. If Lane doesn’t deliver, he’s told, will he accept a change of job: from crime reporter to motoring correspondent? At home, Lane’s rocker wife has left him for an older man, but a precocious daughter who’s stayed behind keeps tripping him up.

As Lane stumbles through a series of red herrings, the story keeps getting funnier, what with Lane’s inner prosecuting counsel serving up imaginary court sequences, and a weekly quiz club at the neighbourhood bar providing all kinds of trivia and conversation that only a newspaper journalist would truly appreciate. Enter a scintillating neighbour, jaundiced reporters, an offshore fling, a trouser-napper and sundry characters who could only exist on an island called England, and you have a book that bridges the gap between crime and comedy, turning it into an effective, even compelling, page-turner. Bravo, Duncan Campbell.

IF IT BLEEDS
Author: Duncan Campbell
Publisher: Hachette India
Pages: 375
Price: Rs 295