It was tragic. There was no other word for it. Eleri ap Vaughan, sixty years old and still Keith Vine's best dealer, had turned for her supplies to other drug wholesalers: she had to die. For the threat of invasion by rival syndicates from other cities cannot be ignored, particularly as rumors reach Keith that an elegantly dressed spy from London, nicknamed Lovely Mover, is in the area. Eleri's death must serve as a warning to others to stay loyal. It's at times like these that Vine's new partner, Detective Chief Inspector Colin Harpur, will prove invaluable -- for example, in sweeping the murder scene for incriminating evidence. Harpur, however, is playing a dangerous undercover game, and he now finds himself in the precarious position of both covering up a murder and investigating it. Only one person suspects what Harpur is up to -- his sneering superior, ACC Desmond Iles. And Iles is not always someone he dares trust. Bill James's Harpur and Iles books are deliciously unsavoury: a brilliant combination of almost Jacobean savagery and sexual betrayal with a tart comedy of contemporary manners. -- John Harvey, The Crime Writer's Crime Writer, Guardian
