The hackneyed British thriller genre featuring maverick Detective Inspectors is moved on by Dhand. Detective Inspector Harry Virdee is British-Asian brought up in Bradford where his father owned a corner shop. As a teenager Harry murdered a thief who was robbing his father’s shop. But Harry was the family star and his brother Ronnie took responsibility and the jail sentence. Harry went onto become a star police officer and Ronnie graduated as a drug ‘lord’.
The Virdee family was further rent apart by Harry’s apostate marriage to a Muslim (he’s Sikh). Nonetheless Harry and Ronnie are deeply entwined as brothers. The conflicts of the police officer and the criminal come to a head with Ronnie’s daughter Tara. She leaves home and becomes embroiled in the very murky criminal world of Bradford.
Bradford’s crime world is not only drugs but also teenage prostitution and (worse) child kidnapping. Both Asian-British and white British are involved. Sarah was one such. However she was resourceful and escaped to plan her revenge on the gangs which preyed on vulnerable women and girls. The pace of the book is unrelenting and the storyline is very strong. As fiction it’s brilliant, as an insight it’s even better
Why you should read this book: At every level it works and is a very good read indeed
Why you shouldn’t read this book: You may well dislike scenes where vulnerable children are exploited.
Chris
Odeboyz's Blog 