In the grimy underbelly of London, private detective Duffy takes on an extortion case and finds himself pitted against one of the city’s most dangerous crime lords
Rosie McKechnie was alone when the two men entered her home, tied her to a chair, and cut her with a switchblade. It was a message for her husband, Brian. To outside appearances, Brian McKechnie is just a businessman. But to Big Eddy Martoff, London’s underworld kingpin, McKechnie is a big fat mark. With a history of crooked business deals and extramarital affairs, McKechnie is the perfect target. To beat back the blackmail, McKechnie needs someone who understands lowlifes like Martoff—and Nick Duffy knows lowlifes.
Duffy was a copper until four years ago, when malicious rumors about his sex life ripped through the force. Now he is in private security, and McKechnie’s case is one he cannot refuse. Duffy, no stranger to his city’s seedier offerings, dives into a world of prostitutes, hoods, and porn moguls. Can he find a way to put the pinch on Big Eddy before Soho swallows him whole?
Dan Kavanagh was born in County Sligo, Ireland, in 1946. After an uncompromising adolescence, he left Ireland when he was nineteen and roamed the world. He has been an entertainment officer on a Japanese supertanker, a waiter on roller skates at a drive-in eatery in Tucson, and a bouncer in a gay bar in San Francisco. He boasts of having flown light planes on the Colombian cocaine route, but all that is known for certain is that he was once a baggage handler at Toronto International Airport. He lives in Islington, North London, and works in jobs that (with mild paranoia) he declines to specify.