Top Banana

This is the thirteenth book in the Harpur and Iles series, begun in 1985 and starring the sarcastic DCS and devious ACC of an unspecified provincial police force. Mandy, a just-teenage drugs courier has been killed in a shoot-out between rival gangs of dealers. The Chief Constable wants infiltration of the syndicates, but it soon appears that the sergeant he nominates for the task may already be in the pay of one of the gangs. Colin Harpur and Desmond Iles, as ever, have their own, different plans for confronting the drug barons. Bill James excels in writing about the murky interface between coppers and villains in a style which is unique, and totally realistic, if cynical. His treatment of dialogue is especially brilliant. The only problem is that, reading just one novel is a bit like watching only a couple of episodes of a TV soap: there are so many continuing sub-plots involving the same characters, that you need to read the entire series of books in order to extract the maximum from each one. So, why don't you?

Another of the adventures of Harpur and Iles, British detectives supreme, and their age-impaired boss Lane. The heavy in this case is Mansel Shale, top banana in the local drug trade.A territorial battle goes awfully wrong, and a 13 year old carrier girl is shot and killed. This is entirely too much not only for the police, but also for the drug traders. The hunt is on for the perpetrator.The book is funny, but moves awfully slow. You get the impression that the author is tired of always rehashing the same characters, finding very little new to say about them. Nevertheless, it is a pleasant read.

I'm hooked on these Harpur and Iles mysteries. They are unlike anything else out there in the genre of contemporary tough Brit dicks... even the best of the authors(Rankin, Harvey)pale in comparison. & Top Banana by Bill James might be the best of the bunch(pun intended)he's written. The truly weird relationship Harpur and Iles have is almost perfectly mirrored in the two drug lords Mansel Shale and Alf Ivis. Shale and Iles can see into the future or to put it another way they can telescope current events into accurate guesses of what will happen next, or who is behind a murder. I've been absolutely zealous pushing these books on my friends to read and often they'll say the books are too dark or too weird but hey, post-9-11 it's all too dark and weird so there's this congruency, this perfect fit. Try it. It's a 50-50 proposition Bill James either scores deep or is totally wrong for you.There's certainly nothing middling about this authors work.

I have read every entry in James' series starring Harpur and Iles, and loved every one. His villains (hard to distinguish from the coppers) are the best in the business--and their dialogue sparkles! You can almost hear Bob Hoskins and Michael Caine sparring with each other had any of these been made into movies(why haven't they?) And Harpur and the rapier tongued Iles, they are absolutely marvelous--a couple of coppers not above planting evidence(in earlier books) breaking and entering and so on, all in the name of justice(?)I have been big fan of Elmore Leonard for years and still am, but when it comes to dialogue and witty repartee, James is in a CLASS BY HIMSELF!!