Halo Parade

The third in the Harpur and Iles series. Full of humor, grit, gripping dialogue, sex, drugs - what more could one want in a story? Harpur takes more than his share of tough breaks in this one, and Iles really starts to blossom as a character as well. The series keeps getting better and better.

I have read several of Bill James' police procedurals and this is one of the best. The characters are highly original, the dialogue sparkles, and the descriptions are often poetic. (Example: "His brain shone like potato peelings.") The settings can be dark and sinister, but there is plenty of black humor in both this entry and in the series. James creates a morally ambiguous but fascinating world in 1980s/1990s Britain. I intend to buy every one of James's Harper & Iles mysteries.