Bill James Easy Streets

Easy Streets

Bill James

Norton, Jul 2005, $23.95

ISBN: 039306042X

For years there was agreement between Assistant Chief Constable Desmond Iles and drug kingpins Mansel Shale and Panicking Ralph Ember. The cops would wink at their drug deals in return they would keep the streets safe and peaceful for the law abiding citizen. However, classic supply and demand economics takes root over time; surplus drugs become available in a risk free buyer's market leading to increase in small owner competition that eats at the oligopoly's dwindling profit margin.

Someone ends the truce, blowing up the home of dealer Ferdy Dubal, killing him and his daughter. Detective Chief Superintendent Colin Harper and Iles know the peace is over, as they try to solve the double homicide. Meanwhile Colin's teenage Jill explains the by-product outcome of the street deal in economic terms making Iles wonder if he has done the right thing. As the detectives investigate, more killings occur and the open drug war threatens the city making both cops reflect on the ethics of blinking.

The Harper-Iles police procedural has consistently been one of the best British police procedurals on the market for the past six or so years; the latest tale EASY STREETS perhaps is the best yet. Besides a fabulous investigation, readers see a fresh side to Iles whose conscience has taken a battering with the outcome of his drug policy yet he remains pompous and rigid as ever. Harper is his perfect sidekick but this single dad receives an education from his teenage daughters that open his eyes to the reality of the deal as much as the drug related murders do. Bill James is at his finest with this unsurpassed thriller that may prove to be the sub-genre's top novel of the year.

Harriet Klausner