good but didn't blow me away, 30 Sep 2008
The first Jake Arnott book I've read, although I've really enjoyed the TV adaptations of The Long Firm and He Kills Coppers. I found this initially very compelling and it was atmospheric throughout, but the switching of narrative focus got tiresome, mainly because the Gary Glitter character was boring and stupid. We didn't get enough of Walker, the spy, who was very interesting. He reminded me of the Stasi guy in the film The Lives of Others, in that he begins to identify more with the people he is watching than the system he works for. Also, unfortunately, the most interesting character, O'Connell, kills himself in the first chapter.
Occasionally Arnott's prose seemed pat and simplistic and at times I felt he 'told' rather than 'showed' what was happening.
In common with some of the other reviewers, I found the ending far too abrupt. I also didn't quite believe it, and didn't think it was powerful enough. (I don't want to give too much away). In general, the book was far too short and he could have afforded to luxuriate in the fabulous atmosphere he had created - in the way that Alan Hollinghurst luxuriates in the atmosphere of The Line of Beauty.
Overall though, it was clever to juxtapose the glam pop world with the underground activist world. I found myself wanting to find out more about Situationism.
The fact that I couldn't put the book down says something. I couldn't say that for Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie, the book I slogged through (and still haven't finished) before reading Johnny Come Home. Jake Arnott really knows how to tell a story and keep up the pace, unlike tedious old Rushdie - God knows why he keeps getting so many prizes.


Great ideas, as always. , 18 Dec 2007
In the grim London of the early '70s, two disparate threads of the era - post-hippy revolutionary politics and glam rock - meet. Arnott's meditations on modern history are, as always, fascinating and original - for instance, the link he makes between glam rock and science fiction TV shows of the 1950's was a completely new idea to me, as was his Situationist interpretation of the work of Gary Glitter(!)

However, as other reviewers have pointed out, it's less satisfying when seen as a piece of storytelling - a brisk read which finishes rather abruptly.

Glittering book?, 06 Sep 2007
I've just finished reading it. I confess I only bought it because of the great review Bowie gave this author and the link of the Bowie references... I loved being taken up by sudden Bowie lyric quotes appearing without my expecting them... loved the nods to real characters of the period which made them all the more imaginable to me... thought I was going to have problems with all the political stuff but went with it... I thught the ending was brilliant... lots of others hadn't... it was the very begininning that I found most difficult... bvut once I was onto chapter 3 I kneow I was going to see it through... I thought it got better and better. Great stuff. I like how todays knoweldge of what went on is reflected on and duly prodded at by the events of the story... I wonder what Mr Glitter and King would think if they read it?

Abrupt ending, but good, 25 Jul 2007
Unless I have bought a defective copy, this is the most abrupt ending book I've ever read! Is it to be continued? It certainly left a lot of unanswered questions. However I enjoyed the story which surrounded the lives of three people sharing a squat in the early 70s. It's my first Jake Arnott book and I found his writing bright, clear and sometimes quite blunt but even though it was quite explicit I didn't find it offensive. A couple of the characters in the book seemed to be dead ringers for stars of the period, spot them if you can. Overall I hope there is a sequel so I can find out what happens next.

a brilliant account of the early 70s, 13 Mar 2007
This is very much in the style of the same author's Long Firm trilogy in that it combines real events and characters with fiction. The evocation of early 70s london is mostly eerily accurate and as one who lived there at the time it sparked vivid memories (not all pleasant). The sleazy foundations on which "Glam Rock" was built and the desperate flailings of confused leftist sects on the edge of a kind of terrorism, are very well
portrayed. Sometimes the characters are unconvincing and the end comes as a bit of an anticlimax but the overall effect is powerful.

good but didn't blow me away, 30 Sep 2008
The first Jake Arnott book I've read, although I've really enjoyed the TV adaptations of The Long Firm and He Kills Coppers. I found this initially very compelling and it was atmospheric throughout, but the switching of narrative focus got tiresome, mainly because the Gary Glitter character was boring and stupid. We didn't get enough of Walker, the spy, who was very interesting. He reminded me of the Stasi guy in the film The Lives of Others, in that he begins to identify more with the people he is watching than the system he works for. Also, unfortunately, the most interesting character, O'Connell, kills himself in the first chapter.
Occasionally Arnott's prose seemed pat and simplistic and at times I felt he 'told' rather than 'showed' what was happening.
In common with some of the other reviewers, I found the ending far too abrupt. I also didn't quite believe it, and didn't think it was powerful enough. (I don't want to give too much away). In general, the book was far too short and he could have afforded to luxuriate in the fabulous atmosphere he had created - in the way that Alan Hollinghurst luxuriates in the atmosphere of The Line of Beauty.
Overall though, it was clever to juxtapose the glam pop world with the underground activist world. I found myself wanting to find out more about Situationism.
The fact that I couldn't put the book down says something. I couldn't say that for Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie, the book I slogged through (and still haven't finished) before reading Johnny Come Home. Jake Arnott really knows how to tell a story and keep up the pace, unlike tedious old Rushdie - God knows why he keeps getting so many prizes.


Great ideas, as always. , 18 Dec 2007
In the grim London of the early '70s, two disparate threads of the era - post-hippy revolutionary politics and glam rock - meet. Arnott's meditations on modern history are, as always, fascinating and original - for instance, the link he makes between glam rock and science fiction TV shows of the 1950's was a completely new idea to me, as was his Situationist interpretation of the work of Gary Glitter(!)

However, as other reviewers have pointed out, it's less satisfying when seen as a piece of storytelling - a brisk read which finishes rather abruptly.

Glittering book?, 06 Sep 2007
I've just finished reading it. I confess I only bought it because of the great review Bowie gave this author and the link of the Bowie references... I loved being taken up by sudden Bowie lyric quotes appearing without my expecting them... loved the nods to real characters of the period which made them all the more imaginable to me... thought I was going to have problems with all the political stuff but went with it... I thught the ending was brilliant... lots of others hadn't... it was the very begininning that I found most difficult... bvut once I was onto chapter 3 I kneow I was going to see it through... I thought it got better and better. Great stuff. I like how todays knoweldge of what went on is reflected on and duly prodded at by the events of the story... I wonder what Mr Glitter and King would think if they read it?

Abrupt ending, but good, 25 Jul 2007
Unless I have bought a defective copy, this is the most abrupt ending book I've ever read! Is it to be continued? It certainly left a lot of unanswered questions. However I enjoyed the story which surrounded the lives of three people sharing a squat in the early 70s. It's my first Jake Arnott book and I found his writing bright, clear and sometimes quite blunt but even though it was quite explicit I didn't find it offensive. A couple of the characters in the book seemed to be dead ringers for stars of the period, spot them if you can. Overall I hope there is a sequel so I can find out what happens next.

a brilliant account of the early 70s, 13 Mar 2007
This is very much in the style of the same author's Long Firm trilogy in that it combines real events and characters with fiction. The evocation of early 70s london is mostly eerily accurate and as one who lived there at the time it sparked vivid memories (not all pleasant). The sleazy foundations on which "Glam Rock" was built and the desperate flailings of confused leftist sects on the edge of a kind of terrorism, are very well
portrayed. Sometimes the characters are unconvincing and the end comes as a bit of an anticlimax but the overall effect is powerful.

An enjoyable read, 27 Jul 2008
A wonderfully written and conceived book, that I had difficulty putting down. Maybe because it was all so plausible! The characters are well developed and some, of them are all too real as if we have all known someone like them during our own lives. Maybe because this is a result of the fact that the author draws on real events of the past to form the skeleton of the story he is telling. Whatever the reason the book reads well and the story moves along at a steady pace with no ridiculous twists or turns. I strongly recommend you read this book, and the two that follow it.

wonderful london-based crime thriller, 07 Aug 2006
I'm about to read Johnny Come Home for the gay book discussion group so I thought I'd read The Long Firm first. Wow! I was completely hooked and ended up reading the entire Trilogy in about ten days. Loved it! An excellent read, cracking pace, good dialogue, absolutely convincing characterisation and some good plot turns.Interesting mix of fact and fiction: boy has this author done his research.Like most gay men rent boys and fading sixties pop stars are a subject of fascination: add to that gay gangster Harry Starks, wonderful evocation of Soho back in the day and it's the perfect summer read, I finished the trilogy on the train back from Brighton Pride 2006.
Highly reccomended!

Jake Arnott's He Kills Coppers opens in August 1966 when the feel-good factor is running high as England enjoys World Cup victory and a seemingly endless summer. But the sunshine brings some nasty creatures out, and the brutal slaying of three policemen in a west London street sends shockwaves right to the heart of the nation. For three men, the killing is more than a front-page outrage. For Billy Porter, a war-time hero turned petty thief, it's a plan that went fatally wrong. For Frank Taylor, a Detective Sergeant trying to climb the Met's career ladder without resorting to corruption, it's a bereavement--the loss of a loyal comrade which must be avenged. For Tony Meehan, cub reporter on the Sunday Illustrated, it's nothing more than a fortuitous scoop that assures him his job. But reporting the crime awakens sinister urges that he's unable to resist and soon Meehan is creating his own news. Three men who've never met; three lives inextricably linked, in a chain of events that changed history.

Those who raved about Arnott's debut novel The Long Firm will not be disappointed by its successor, a tale combining the tension of a hard-boiled crime thriller with a Dickensian eye for detail. The sounds and the spirit of 60s London are evoked with almost filmic precision, while the plot advances in that swift, inexorable fashion of the very best myths. A few of its peripheral characters, such as Jeannie, the whore with the conscience ("I never want to rely on bad money again"), and Mooney the Masonic vice-cop ("Through the Mysteries of the Craft you can keep yourself clean"), might be slightly clichéd, but the principal trio of narrators is vivid and utterly convincing. For a story that combines morality, the authentic whiff of Soho sleaze and a plot that goes straight for the jugular, readers need look no further. --Matthew Baylis

good but didn't blow me away, 30 Sep 2008
The first Jake Arnott book I've read, although I've really enjoyed the TV adaptations of The Long Firm and He Kills Coppers. I found this initially very compelling and it was atmospheric throughout, but the switching of narrative focus got tiresome, mainly because the Gary Glitter character was boring and stupid. We didn't get enough of Walker, the spy, who was very interesting. He reminded me of the Stasi guy in the film The Lives of Others, in that he begins to identify more with the people he is watching than the system he works for. Also, unfortunately, the most interesting character, O'Connell, kills himself in the first chapter.
Occasionally Arnott's prose seemed pat and simplistic and at times I felt he 'told' rather than 'showed' what was happening.
In common with some of the other reviewers, I found the ending far too abrupt. I also didn't quite believe it, and didn't think it was powerful enough. (I don't want to give too much away). In general, the book was far too short and he could have afforded to luxuriate in the fabulous atmosphere he had created - in the way that Alan Hollinghurst luxuriates in the atmosphere of The Line of Beauty.
Overall though, it was clever to juxtapose the glam pop world with the underground activist world. I found myself wanting to find out more about Situationism.
The fact that I couldn't put the book down says something. I couldn't say that for Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie, the book I slogged through (and still haven't finished) before reading Johnny Come Home. Jake Arnott really knows how to tell a story and keep up the pace, unlike tedious old Rushdie - God knows why he keeps getting so many prizes.


Great ideas, as always. , 18 Dec 2007
In the grim London of the early '70s, two disparate threads of the era - post-hippy revolutionary politics and glam rock - meet. Arnott's meditations on modern history are, as always, fascinating and original - for instance, the link he makes between glam rock and science fiction TV shows of the 1950's was a completely new idea to me, as was his Situationist interpretation of the work of Gary Glitter(!)

However, as other reviewers have pointed out, it's less satisfying when seen as a piece of storytelling - a brisk read which finishes rather abruptly.

Glittering book?, 06 Sep 2007
I've just finished reading it. I confess I only bought it because of the great review Bowie gave this author and the link of the Bowie references... I loved being taken up by sudden Bowie lyric quotes appearing without my expecting them... loved the nods to real characters of the period which made them all the more imaginable to me... thought I was going to have problems with all the political stuff but went with it... I thught the ending was brilliant... lots of others hadn't... it was the very begininning that I found most difficult... bvut once I was onto chapter 3 I kneow I was going to see it through... I thought it got better and better. Great stuff. I like how todays knoweldge of what went on is reflected on and duly prodded at by the events of the story... I wonder what Mr Glitter and King would think if they read it?

Abrupt ending, but good, 25 Jul 2007
Unless I have bought a defective copy, this is the most abrupt ending book I've ever read! Is it to be continued? It certainly left a lot of unanswered questions. However I enjoyed the story which surrounded the lives of three people sharing a squat in the early 70s. It's my first Jake Arnott book and I found his writing bright, clear and sometimes quite blunt but even though it was quite explicit I didn't find it offensive. A couple of the characters in the book seemed to be dead ringers for stars of the period, spot them if you can. Overall I hope there is a sequel so I can find out what happens next.

a brilliant account of the early 70s, 13 Mar 2007
This is very much in the style of the same author's Long Firm trilogy in that it combines real events and characters with fiction. The evocation of early 70s london is mostly eerily accurate and as one who lived there at the time it sparked vivid memories (not all pleasant). The sleazy foundations on which "Glam Rock" was built and the desperate flailings of confused leftist sects on the edge of a kind of terrorism, are very well
portrayed. Sometimes the characters are unconvincing and the end comes as a bit of an anticlimax but the overall effect is powerful.

An enjoyable read, 27 Jul 2008
A wonderfully written and conceived book, that I had difficulty putting down. Maybe because it was all so plausible! The characters are well developed and some, of them are all too real as if we have all known someone like them during our own lives. Maybe because this is a result of the fact that the author draws on real events of the past to form the skeleton of the story he is telling. Whatever the reason the book reads well and the story moves along at a steady pace with no ridiculous twists or turns. I strongly recommend you read this book, and the two that follow it.

wonderful london-based crime thriller, 07 Aug 2006
I'm about to read Johnny Come Home for the gay book discussion group so I thought I'd read The Long Firm first. Wow! I was completely hooked and ended up reading the entire Trilogy in about ten days. Loved it! An excellent read, cracking pace, good dialogue, absolutely convincing characterisation and some good plot turns.Interesting mix of fact and fiction: boy has this author done his research.Like most gay men rent boys and fading sixties pop stars are a subject of fascination: add to that gay gangster Harry Starks, wonderful evocation of Soho back in the day and it's the perfect summer read, I finished the trilogy on the train back from Brighton Pride 2006.
Highly reccomended!

Hard Work!, 25 Jul 2008
This book follows three main characters, and it is written in the first person for two of them and the third person for the other. I found this quite annoying, especially as there is no obvious indication when the dialogue changes between characters.

The story really drags. I nearly gave up after 100 pages because nothing significant had happened. Then it picked up for a while. I read another another 100 pages; very little happened and the story seemed to be meandering into another pointless tangent, so I stopped reading.

The plot and characters are flimsy and very sterotypical. Coppers taking bungs from criminals seems to be the main thread of the story, and all corrupt coppers are Freemasons of course!

Don't waste your time reading this book.


I was able to put it down several times I fear!, 01 Jun 2008
Unlike the Sunday Telegraph reviewer's quote on the cover and the enthusiasm of certain other reviewers, I did find it very easy to put this book down several times, often accompanied by shaking of my head!

I did not find the Long Firm debut the masterpiece many claimed and I fear that I find this one even more disappointing. The repeat of interacting stories by the three main characters but this time continually overlapping across the full book as opposed to the prior books self contained character dialogues makes for an interesting template. Also the reprising of certain of the key characters in the first book in "B" roles provides an interesting continuum.

The problems are in the details that just left me continually feeling the story was being shoehorned into real events. Picking up on the models of a corrupt homosexual peer and Sunday newspapers "manufactured" outrage stories seems to ironically be more effective characterization than the key lead character ideas of an ambitious copper who escapes his early exposures to freemasonry and corruption in the Flying Squad and a closet gay crime journalist who starts to murder homosexuals due to his dark side!

Alongside these concerns, the key problem is while tracking events over three decades that are well personally known having lived through all of them, I was continually left feeling the events were being subverted to the story and not embellishing it. Leaving aside that Harry Roberts in real life the model for Billy Porter did not escape the police dragnet in his forest hideout , would a corrupt senior policemen at Scotland Yard really drive a Jensen Interceptor and make the point to the provincial copper investigating him for corruption!

I suspect I will read the third and final book out of general interest but do so with some trepidation given my views on the first two!

My dog ate the book, 05 Aug 2007
l had settled down to read this book, got 50 pages into it, and
had to go out. On My return, there was one of my Great Danes
wagging his tale, he had chewed the lot up.
To me it says something, if you are prepared to go out, and
buy it again.
I did. I lived the book. It's certainly gritty, but the
characters come to life. The chase in the story has you
at nerves end.
Jake Arnott, is a superb writer, and a master of the tense.
My only criticism of him, like a few other Authors, we have
to wait ages for a new book. He gives a presence in the
book, and a natural ability to be living the book, and
sometimes knows a little to much.
There is no order in Jakes books,but l would also
recommend The Long Firm.


Not a patch on The Long Firm, 16 Jul 2005
After reading the quite brilliant Long Firm, I couldn't wait to start on this, and I was very disappointed. This book revolves around a bent copper, a sadistic reporter and a low life villain, sounds good on paper doesn't it? But I'm afraid it just doesn't quite hit the mark. The characters just don't excite, and even the Long Firm regulars such as Starks and Thursby seem to have lost their spark. About half way through I actually considered giving up, but I persevered and it was an ok read, but nothing more. If you haven't read an Arnott book go get The Long Firm right this minute, that is one of the best books I've read in years.

The best of the trilogy, 01 Jan 2005
Jake Arnott's novels have a very strong prose style, and are obviously very well researched. He Kills Coppers is, for my money, the strongest of the three - taking in football hooliganism, thatcherism and cop killing. Highly recommended. Put the disappointing BBC adaptation out of your mind and read this.

good but didn't blow me away, 30 Sep 2008
The first Jake Arnott book I've read, although I've really enjoyed the TV adaptations of The Long Firm and He Kills Coppers. I found this initially very compelling and it was atmospheric throughout, but the switching of narrative focus got tiresome, mainly because the Gary Glitter character was boring and stupid. We didn't get enough of Walker, the spy, who was very interesting. He reminded me of the Stasi guy in the film The Lives of Others, in that he begins to identify more with the people he is watching than the system he works for. Also, unfortunately, the most interesting character, O'Connell, kills himself in the first chapter.
Occasionally Arnott's prose seemed pat and simplistic and at times I felt he 'told' rather than 'showed' what was happening.
In common with some of the other reviewers, I found the ending far too abrupt. I also didn't quite believe it, and didn't think it was powerful enough. (I don't want to give too much away). In general, the book was far too short and he could have afforded to luxuriate in the fabulous atmosphere he had created - in the way that Alan Hollinghurst luxuriates in the atmosphere of The Line of Beauty.
Overall though, it was clever to juxtapose the glam pop world with the underground activist world. I found myself wanting to find out more about Situationism.
The fact that I couldn't put the book down says something. I couldn't say that for Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie, the book I slogged through (and still haven't finished) before reading Johnny Come Home. Jake Arnott really knows how to tell a story and keep up the pace, unlike tedious old Rushdie - God knows why he keeps getting so many prizes.


Great ideas, as always. , 18 Dec 2007
In the grim London of the early '70s, two disparate threads of the era - post-hippy revolutionary politics and glam rock - meet. Arnott's meditations on modern history are, as always, fascinating and original - for instance, the link he makes between glam rock and science fiction TV shows of the 1950's was a completely new idea to me, as was his Situationist interpretation of the work of Gary Glitter(!)

However, as other reviewers have pointed out, it's less satisfying when seen as a piece of storytelling - a brisk read which finishes rather abruptly.

Glittering book?, 06 Sep 2007
I've just finished reading it. I confess I only bought it because of the great review Bowie gave this author and the link of the Bowie references... I loved being taken up by sudden Bowie lyric quotes appearing without my expecting them... loved the nods to real characters of the period which made them all the more imaginable to me... thought I was going to have problems with all the political stuff but went with it... I thught the ending was brilliant... lots of others hadn't... it was the very begininning that I found most difficult... bvut once I was onto chapter 3 I kneow I was going to see it through... I thought it got better and better. Great stuff. I like how todays knoweldge of what went on is reflected on and duly prodded at by the events of the story... I wonder what Mr Glitter and King would think if they read it?

Abrupt ending, but good, 25 Jul 2007
Unless I have bought a defective copy, this is the most abrupt ending book I've ever read! Is it to be continued? It certainly left a lot of unanswered questions. However I enjoyed the story which surrounded the lives of three people sharing a squat in the early 70s. It's my first Jake Arnott book and I found his writing bright, clear and sometimes quite blunt but even though it was quite explicit I didn't find it offensive. A couple of the characters in the book seemed to be dead ringers for stars of the period, spot them if you can. Overall I hope there is a sequel so I can find out what happens next.

a brilliant account of the early 70s, 13 Mar 2007
This is very much in the style of the same author's Long Firm trilogy in that it combines real events and characters with fiction. The evocation of early 70s london is mostly eerily accurate and as one who lived there at the time it sparked vivid memories (not all pleasant). The sleazy foundations on which "Glam Rock" was built and the desperate flailings of confused leftist sects on the edge of a kind of terrorism, are very well
portrayed. Sometimes the characters are unconvincing and the end comes as a bit of an anticlimax but the overall effect is powerful.

An enjoyable read, 27 Jul 2008
A wonderfully written and conceived book, that I had difficulty putting down. Maybe because it was all so plausible! The characters are well developed and some, of them are all too real as if we have all known someone like them during our own lives. Maybe because this is a result of the fact that the author draws on real events of the past to form the skeleton of the story he is telling. Whatever the reason the book reads well and the story moves along at a steady pace with no ridiculous twists or turns. I strongly recommend you read this book, and the two that follow it.

wonderful london-based crime thriller, 07 Aug 2006
I'm about to read Johnny Come Home for the gay book discussion group so I thought I'd read The Long Firm first. Wow! I was completely hooked and ended up reading the entire Trilogy in about ten days. Loved it! An excellent read, cracking pace, good dialogue, absolutely convincing characterisation and some good plot turns.Interesting mix of fact and fiction: boy has this author done his research.Like most gay men rent boys and fading sixties pop stars are a subject of fascination: add to that gay gangster Harry Starks, wonderful evocation of Soho back in the day and it's the perfect summer read, I finished the trilogy on the train back from Brighton Pride 2006.
Highly reccomended!

Hard Work!, 25 Jul 2008
This book follows three main characters, and it is written in the first person for two of them and the third person for the other. I found this quite annoying, especially as there is no obvious indication when the dialogue changes between characters.

The story really drags. I nearly gave up after 100 pages because nothing significant had happened. Then it picked up for a while. I read another another 100 pages; very little happened and the story seemed to be meandering into another pointless tangent, so I stopped reading.

The plot and characters are flimsy and very sterotypical. Coppers taking bungs from criminals seems to be the main thread of the story, and all corrupt coppers are Freemasons of course!

Don't waste your time reading this book.


I was able to put it down several times I fear!, 01 Jun 2008
Unlike the Sunday Telegraph reviewer's quote on the cover and the enthusiasm of certain other reviewers, I did find it very easy to put this book down several times, often accompanied by shaking of my head!

I did not find the Long Firm debut the masterpiece many claimed and I fear that I find this one even more disappointing. The repeat of interacting stories by the three main characters but this time continually overlapping across the full book as opposed to the prior books self contained character dialogues makes for an interesting template. Also the reprising of certain of the key characters in the first book in "B" roles provides an interesting continuum.

The problems are in the details that just left me continually feeling the story was being shoehorned into real events. Picking up on the models of a corrupt homosexual peer and Sunday newspapers "manufactured" outrage stories seems to ironically be more effective characterization than the key lead character ideas of an ambitious copper who escapes his early exposures to freemasonry and corruption in the Flying Squad and a closet gay crime journalist who starts to murder homosexuals due to his dark side!

Alongside these concerns, the key problem is while tracking events over three decades that are well personally known having lived through all of them, I was continually left feeling the events were being subverted to the story and not embellishing it. Leaving aside that Harry Roberts in real life the model for Billy Porter did not escape the police dragnet in his forest hideout , would a corrupt senior policemen at Scotland Yard really drive a Jensen Interceptor and make the point to the provincial copper investigating him for corruption!

I suspect I will read the third and final book out of general interest but do so with some trepidation given my views on the first two!

My dog ate the book, 05 Aug 2007
l had settled down to read this book, got 50 pages into it, and
had to go out. On My return, there was one of my Great Danes
wagging his tale, he had chewed the lot up.
To me it says something, if you are prepared to go out, and
buy it again.
I did. I lived the book. It's certainly gritty, but the
characters come to life. The chase in the story has you
at nerves end.
Jake Arnott, is a superb writer, and a master of the tense.
My only criticism of him, like a few other Authors, we have
to wait ages for a new book. He gives a presence in the
book, and a natural ability to be living the book, and
sometimes knows a little to much.
There is no order in Jakes books,but l would also
recommend The Long Firm.


Not a patch on The Long Firm, 16 Jul 2005
After reading the quite brilliant Long Firm, I couldn't wait to start on this, and I was very disappointed. This book revolves around a bent copper, a sadistic reporter and a low life villain, sounds good on paper doesn't it? But I'm afraid it just doesn't quite hit the mark. The characters just don't excite, and even the Long Firm regulars such as Starks and Thursby seem to have lost their spark. About half way through I actually considered giving up, but I persevered and it was an ok read, but nothing more. If you haven't read an Arnott book go get The Long Firm right this minute, that is one of the best books I've read in years.

The best of the trilogy, 01 Jan 2005
Jake Arnott's novels have a very strong prose style, and are obviously very well researched. He Kills Coppers is, for my money, the strongest of the three - taking in football hooliganism, thatcherism and cop killing. Highly recommended. Put the disappointing BBC adaptation out of your mind and read this.

Highly entertaining slice of sixties gangland London, 27 Jul 2008
Jake Arnott's debut novel offers a depiction of a gay gangster in 1960s London, trying to keep up with a changing world, told from the perspective of five different narrators. The end result is essentially five interlinked novellas, each with a different voice, that combine to tell us about the character, Harry Starks.

Some of the voices work better than others. My favourite section was the first, in which a boyfriend of Harry's tells us what it was like to be his lover and companion - and then how it feels when Starks turned against him. I would have been interested to read the whole novel from this narrator's point of view, but Arnott moves on, with varying degrees of success. The weakest element of the story is its final segment, told from the point of view of a university lecturer who befriends Starks. This section enters melodrama and appears to verge on parody, and makes for a somewhat disappointing finale, though it holds the reader's attention better than, for example, the passages set in Africa, or those told by a B-list actress who seems only a fairweather friend of Harry's and not to know him well.

Nevertheless, despite the variation in quality in the writing across the different sections of the book, this is a highly entertaining read. Arnott takes a different approach to that adopted in most crime fiction and vividly, and for the most part believably, evokes the world he describes for his readers. Harry Starks is an intriguing character, one who makes concerted efforts to find out who has viciously murdered a rent boy he knew, but on the other hand, is responsible himself for so much brutal yet casual violence, including involvement in more than one death. After reading five accounts from those who knew Harry, the reader has a better idea of him, but doesn't yet quite understand him, and this and quite a few loose ends in the storyline left me wanting more.

All-in-all, not perfect, but compellingly written and hugely enjoyable, and I will be reading the follow-ups to "The Long Firm."

good but didn't blow me away, 30 Sep 2008
The first Jake Arnott book I've read, although I've really enjoyed the TV adaptations of The Long Firm and He Kills Coppers. I found this initially very compelling and it was atmospheric throughout, but the switching of narrative focus got tiresome, mainly because the Gary Glitter character was boring and stupid. We didn't get enough of Walker, the spy, who was very interesting. He reminded me of the Stasi guy in the film The Lives of Others, in that he begins to identify more with the people he is watching than the system he works for. Also, unfortunately, the most interesting character, O'Connell, kills himself in the first chapter.
Occasionally Arnott's prose seemed pat and simplistic and at times I felt he 'told' rather than 'showed' what was happening.
In common with some of the other reviewers, I found the ending far too abrupt. I also didn't quite believe it, and didn't think it was powerful enough. (I don't want to give too much away). In general, the book was far too short and he could have afforded to luxuriate in the fabulous atmosphere he had created - in the way that Alan Hollinghurst luxuriates in the atmosphere of The Line of Beauty.
Overall though, it was clever to juxtapose the glam pop world with the underground activist world. I found myself wanting to find out more about Situationism.
The fact that I couldn't put the book down says something. I couldn't say that for Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie, the book I slogged through (and still haven't finished) before reading Johnny Come Home. Jake Arnott really knows how to tell a story and keep up the pace, unlike tedious old Rushdie - God knows why he keeps getting so many prizes.


Great ideas, as always. , 18 Dec 2007
In the grim London of the early '70s, two disparate threads of the era - post-hippy revolutionary politics and glam rock - meet. Arnott's meditations on modern history are, as always, fascinating and original - for instance, the link he makes between glam rock and science fiction TV shows of the 1950's was a completely new idea to me, as was his Situationist interpretation of the work of Gary Glitter(!)

However, as other reviewers have pointed out, it's less satisfying when seen as a piece of storytelling - a brisk read which finishes rather abruptly.

Glittering book?, 06 Sep 2007
I've just finished reading it. I confess I only bought it because of the great review Bowie gave this author and the link of the Bowie references... I loved being taken up by sudden Bowie lyric quotes appearing without my expecting them... loved the nods to real characters of the period which made them all the more imaginable to me... thought I was going to have problems with all the political stuff but went with it... I thught the ending was brilliant... lots of others hadn't... it was the very begininning that I found most difficult... bvut once I was onto chapter 3 I kneow I was going to see it through... I thought it got better and better. Great stuff. I like how todays knoweldge of what went on is reflected on and duly prodded at by the events of the story... I wonder what Mr Glitter and King would think if they read it?

Abrupt ending, but good, 25 Jul 2007
Unless I have bought a defective copy, this is the most abrupt ending book I've ever read! Is it to be continued? It certainly left a lot of unanswered questions. However I enjoyed the story which surrounded the lives of three people sharing a squat in the early 70s. It's my first Jake Arnott book and I found his writing bright, clear and sometimes quite blunt but even though it was quite explicit I didn't find it offensive. A couple of the characters in the book seemed to be dead ringers for stars of the period, spot them if you can. Overall I hope there is a sequel so I can find out what happens next.

a brilliant account of the early 70s, 13 Mar 2007
This is very much in the style of the same author's Long Firm trilogy in that it combines real events and characters with fiction. The evocation of early 70s london is mostly eerily accurate and as one who lived there at the time it sparked vivid memories (not all pleasant). The sleazy foundations on which "Glam Rock" was built and the desperate flailings of confused leftist sects on the edge of a kind of terrorism, are very well
portrayed. Sometimes the characters are unconvincing and the end comes as a bit of an anticlimax but the overall effect is powerful.

An enjoyable read, 27 Jul 2008
A wonderfully written and conceived book, that I had difficulty putting down. Maybe because it was all so plausible! The characters are well developed and some, of them are all too real as if we have all known someone like them during our own lives. Maybe because this is a result of the fact that the author draws on real events of the past to form the skeleton of the story he is telling. Whatever the reason the book reads well and the story moves along at a steady pace with no ridiculous twists or turns. I strongly recommend you read this book, and the two that follow it.

wonderful london-based crime thriller, 07 Aug 2006
I'm about to read Johnny Come Home for the gay book discussion group so I thought I'd read The Long Firm first. Wow! I was completely hooked and ended up reading the entire Trilogy in about ten days. Loved it! An excellent read, cracking pace, good dialogue, absolutely convincing characterisation and some good plot turns.Interesting mix of fact and fiction: boy has this author done his research.Like most gay men rent boys and fading sixties pop stars are a subject of fascination: add to that gay gangster Harry Starks, wonderful evocation of Soho back in the day and it's the perfect summer read, I finished the trilogy on the train back from Brighton Pride 2006.
Highly reccomended!

Hard Work!, 25 Jul 2008
This book follows three main characters, and it is written in the first person for two of them and the third person for the other. I found this quite annoying, especially as there is no obvious indication when the dialogue changes between characters.

The story really drags. I nearly gave up after 100 pages because nothing significant had happened. Then it picked up for a while. I read another another 100 pages; very little happened and the story seemed to be meandering into another pointless tangent, so I stopped reading.

The plot and characters are flimsy and very sterotypical. Coppers taking bungs from criminals seems to be the main thread of the story, and all corrupt coppers are Freemasons of course!

Don't waste your time reading this book.


I was able to put it down several times I fear!, 01 Jun 2008
Unlike the Sunday Telegraph reviewer's quote on the cover and the enthusiasm of certain other reviewers, I did find it very easy to put this book down several times, often accompanied by shaking of my head!

I did not find the Long Firm debut the masterpiece many claimed and I fear that I find this one even more disappointing. The repeat of interacting stories by the three main characters but this time continually overlapping across the full book as opposed to the prior books self contained character dialogues makes for an interesting template. Also the reprising of certain of the key characters in the first book in "B" roles provides an interesting continuum.

The problems are in the details that just left me continually feeling the story was being shoehorned into real events. Picking up on the models of a corrupt homosexual peer and Sunday newspapers "manufactured" outrage stories seems to ironically be more effective characterization than the key lead character ideas of an ambitious copper who escapes his early exposures to freemasonry and corruption in the Flying Squad and a closet gay crime journalist who starts to murder homosexuals due to his dark side!

Alongside these concerns, the key problem is while tracking events over three decades that are well personally known having lived through all of them, I was continually left feeling the events were being subverted to the story and not embellishing it. Leaving aside that Harry Roberts in real life the model for Billy Porter did not escape the police dragnet in his forest hideout , would a corrupt senior policemen at Scotland Yard really drive a Jensen Interceptor and make the point to the provincial copper investigating him for corruption!

I suspect I will read the third and final book out of general interest but do so with some trepidation given my views on the first two!

My dog ate the book, 05 Aug 2007
l had settled down to read this book, got 50 pages into it, and
had to go out. On My return, there was one of my Great Danes
wagging his tale, he had chewed the lot up.
To me it says something, if you are prepared to go out, and
buy it again.
I did. I lived the book. It's certainly gritty, but the
characters come to life. The chase in the story has you
at nerves end.
Jake Arnott, is a superb writer, and a master of the tense.
My only criticism of him, like a few other Authors, we have
to wait ages for a new book. He gives a presence in the
book, and a natural ability to be living the book, and
sometimes knows a little to much.
There is no order in Jakes books,but l would also
recommend The Long Firm.


Not a patch on The Long Firm, 16 Jul 2005
After reading the quite brilliant Long Firm, I couldn't wait to start on this, and I was very disappointed. This book revolves around a bent copper, a sadistic reporter and a low life villain, sounds good on paper doesn't it? But I'm afraid it just doesn't quite hit the mark. The characters just don't excite, and even the Long Firm regulars such as Starks and Thursby seem to have lost their spark. About half way through I actually considered giving up, but I persevered and it was an ok read, but nothing more. If you haven't read an Arnott book go get The Long Firm right this minute, that is one of the best books I've read in years.

The best of the trilogy, 01 Jan 2005
Jake Arnott's novels have a very strong prose style, and are obviously very well researched. He Kills Coppers is, for my money, the strongest of the three - taking in football hooliganism, thatcherism and cop killing. Highly recommended. Put the disappointing BBC adaptation out of your mind and read this.

Highly entertaining slice of sixties gangland London, 27 Jul 2008
Jake Arnott's debut novel offers a depiction of a gay gangster in 1960s London, trying to keep up with a changing world, told from the perspective of five different narrators. The end result is essentially five interlinked novellas, each with a different voice, that combine to tell us about the character, Harry Starks.

Some of the voices work better than others. My favourite section was the first, in which a boyfriend of Harry's tells us what it was like to be his lover and companion - and then how it feels when Starks turned against him. I would have been interested to read the whole novel from this narrator's point of view, but Arnott moves on, with varying degrees of success. The weakest element of the story is its final segment, told from the point of view of a university lecturer who befriends Starks. This section enters melodrama and appears to verge on parody, and makes for a somewhat disappointing finale, though it holds the reader's attention better than, for example, the passages set in Africa, or those told by a B-list actress who seems only a fairweather friend of Harry's and not to know him well.

Nevertheless, despite the variation in quality in the writing across the different sections of the book, this is a highly entertaining read. Arnott takes a different approach to that adopted in most crime fiction and vividly, and for the most part believably, evokes the world he describes for his readers. Harry Starks is an intriguing character, one who makes concerted efforts to find out who has viciously murdered a rent boy he knew, but on the other hand, is responsible himself for so much brutal yet casual violence, including involvement in more than one death. After reading five accounts from those who knew Harry, the reader has a better idea of him, but doesn't yet quite understand him, and this and quite a few loose ends in the storyline left me wanting more.

All-in-all, not perfect, but compellingly written and hugely enjoyable, and I will be reading the follow-ups to "The Long Firm."

Excellent book, 17 Jul 2006
Read the triology long after they first came out...not sure why so many reviewers dislike this one. Thought Truecrime was brilliant. A superb critique of the underbelly of contemporary life, not just cashing in on it or glamourisisng it. Couldn't put it down. Again, as with the previous Arnott books there are the excellent characters of fiction mixed with the backdrop of real life references that gives the book a very real feel to it. As a one time long time London resident really could relate to the settings and the stories....so on a personal level was quite thought provoking. A fine finish to a fantastic trilogy.

Disappointing, 15 Mar 2005
I thoroughly enjoyed both The Long Firm and He Kills Coppers but it wasn't far into Truecrime that I began to lose interest. Partly it was the lacklustre plot lines (Julie's whole story is silly, overlong and ultimately rather tedious), but more than anything the book just doesn't seem to be as well-crafted as its predecessors.

Arnott relies far too much here on clumsy exposition to move the story along (in some places, characters witter on uninterrupted for half a page or more) and where previously his characters spoke convincingly, all too often in this book the dialogue seems forced. There's far too much navel-gazing going on too, and the plot often slows to a crawl. In the end I felt uninvolved with the personalities or the story and was just reading in order to get it finished -- which, sadly, is how it seems like it was written.

Good Not Great, 20 Feb 2005
I liked this book enough (it was my first Arnott) to now read The Long Firm, but it definitely petered out about 3/4 of the way through when too much unreality crept in. I guess Tony was a character from a prior book but his character was very hazy. My biggest problem with the book was Julie, whose Psych 101 motivation never rang even slightly true. Gaz was great and a lot of the dialogue and scenes worked, so it's worth reading.

A compelling and very enjoyable read, 15 Sep 2004
Whilst this doesn't match the brilliance of The Long Firm it is a great book that is superior to much other crime fiction.

I love the way that Jake Arnott creates a story that blends fact and fiction and narrates it via a number of distinct voices. I enjoyed the characters he creates and I thought the plot was pacey enough for me to not want to put it down.

Definitely recommended.

Lacklustre, 09 Jul 2004
Having read the Long Firm and thought that many references and storylines came from the Krays (and in particular John Pearsons brilliant - The Profession of Violence) I wasn't surprised to find TRUECRIME underpinned by another notable Gangster masterpiece - Essex Boys! Jake Arnott has clearly rewritten everything from the Tabloid press and mixed them together with 'arry Starks in a Tarantinnoesque plot line that falls well short of the mark. The references to many other celeberity gangsters, their siblings and well known crime capers is cringingly embarassing in particular the events surrounding the aftermath of the Brinks Mat Bullion robbery. I was definetly mugged in the bookshop

good but didn't blow me away, 30 Sep 2008
The first Jake Arnott book I've read, although I've really enjoyed the TV adaptations of The Long Firm and He Kills Coppers. I found this initially very compelling and it was atmospheric throughout, but the switching of narrative focus got tiresome, mainly because the Gary Glitter character was boring and stupid. We didn't get enough of Walker, the spy, who was very interesting. He reminded me of the Stasi guy in the film The Lives of Others, in that he begins to identify more with the people he is watching than the system he works for. Also, unfortunately, the most interesting character, O'Connell, kills himself in the first chapter.
Occasionally Arnott's prose seemed pat and simplistic and at times I felt he 'told' rather than 'showed' what was happening.
In common with some of the other reviewers, I found the ending far too abrupt. I also didn't quite believe it, and didn't think it was powerful enough. (I don't want to give too much away). In general, the book was far too short and he could have afforded to luxuriate in the fabulous atmosphere he had created - in the way that Alan Hollinghurst luxuriates in the atmosphere of The Line of Beauty.
Overall though, it was clever to juxtapose the glam pop world with the underground activist world. I found myself wanting to find out more about Situationism.
The fact that I couldn't put the book down says something. I couldn't say that for Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie, the book I slogged through (and still haven't finished) before reading Johnny Come Home. Jake Arnott really knows how to tell a story and keep up the pace, unlike tedious old Rushdie - God knows why he keeps getting so many prizes.


Great ideas, as always. , 18 Dec 2007
In the grim London of the early '70s, two disparate threads of the era - post-hippy revolutionary politics and glam rock - meet. Arnott's meditations on modern history are, as always, fascinating and original - for instance, the link he makes between glam rock and science fiction TV shows of the 1950's was a completely new idea to me, as was his Situationist interpretation of the work of Gary Glitter(!)

However, as other reviewers have pointed out, it's less satisfying when seen as a piece of storytelling - a brisk read which finishes rather abruptly.

Glittering book?, 06 Sep 2007
I've just finished reading it. I confess I only bought it because of the great review Bowie gave this author and the link of the Bowie references... I loved being taken up by sudden Bowie lyric quotes appearing without my expecting them... loved the nods to real characters of the period which made them all the more imaginable to me... thought I was going to have problems with all the political stuff but went with it... I thught the ending was brilliant... lots of others hadn't... it was the very begininning that I found most difficult... bvut once I was onto chapter 3 I kneow I was going to see it through... I thought it got better and better. Great stuff. I like how todays knoweldge of what went on is reflected on and duly prodded at by the events of the story... I wonder what Mr Glitter and King would think if they read it?

Abrupt ending, but good, 25 Jul 2007
Unless I have bought a defective copy, this is the most abrupt ending book I've ever read! Is it to be continued? It certainly left a lot of unanswered questions. However I enjoyed the story which surrounded the lives of three people sharing a squat in the early 70s. It's my first Jake Arnott book and I found his writing bright, clear and sometimes quite blunt but even though it was quite explicit I didn't find it offensive. A couple of the characters in the book seemed to be dead ringers for stars of the period, spot them if you can. Overall I hope there is a sequel so I can find out what happens next.

a brilliant account of the early 70s, 13 Mar 2007
This is very much in the style of the same author's Long Firm trilogy in that it combines real events and characters with fiction. The evocation of early 70s london is mostly eerily accurate and as one who lived there at the time it sparked vivid memories (not all pleasant). The sleazy foundations on which "Glam Rock" was built and the desperate flailings of confused leftist sects on the edge of a kind of terrorism, are very well
portrayed. Sometimes the characters are unconvincing and the end comes as a bit of an anticlimax but the overall effect is powerful.

An enjoyable read, 27 Jul 2008
A wonderfully written and conceived book, that I had difficulty putting down. Maybe because it was all so plausible! The characters are well developed and some, of them are all too real as if we have all known someone like them during our own lives. Maybe because this is a result of the fact that the author draws on real events of the past to form the skeleton of the story he is telling. Whatever the reason the book reads well and the story moves along at a steady pace with no ridiculous twists or turns. I strongly recommend you read this book, and the two that follow it.

wonderful london-based crime thriller, 07 Aug 2006
I'm about to read Johnny Come Home for the gay book discussion group so I thought I'd read The Long Firm first. Wow! I was completely hooked and ended up reading the entire Trilogy in about ten days. Loved it! An excellent read, cracking pace, good dialogue, absolutely convincing characterisation and some good plot turns.Interesting mix of fact and fiction: boy has this author done his research.Like most gay men rent boys and fading sixties pop stars are a subject of fascination: add to that gay gangster Harry Starks, wonderful evocation of Soho back in the day and it's the perfect summer read, I finished the trilogy on the train back from Brighton Pride 2006.
Highly reccomended!

Hard Work!, 25 Jul 2008
This book follows three main characters, and it is written in the first person for two of them and the third person for the other. I found this quite annoying, especially as there is no obvious indication when the dialogue changes between characters.

The story really drags. I nearly gave up after 100 pages because nothing significant had happened. Then it picked up for a while. I read another another 100 pages; very little happened and the story seemed to be meandering into another pointless tangent, so I stopped reading.

The plot and characters are flimsy and very sterotypical. Coppers taking bungs from criminals seems to be the main thread of the story, and all corrupt coppers are Freemasons of course!

Don't waste your time reading this book.


I was able to put it down several times I fear!, 01 Jun 2008
Unlike the Sunday Telegraph reviewer's quote on the cover and the enthusiasm of certain other reviewers, I did find it very easy to put this book down several times, often accompanied by shaking of my head!

I did not find the Long Firm debut the masterpiece many claimed and I fear that I find this one even more disappointing. The repeat of interacting stories by the three main characters but this time continually overlapping across the full book as opposed to the prior books self contained character dialogues makes for an interesting template. Also the reprising of certain of the key characters in the first book in "B" roles provides an interesting continuum.

The problems are in the details that just left me continually feeling the story was being shoehorned into real events. Picking up on the models of a corrupt homosexual peer and Sunday newspapers "manufactured" outrage stories seems to ironically be more effective characterization than the key lead character ideas of an ambitious copper who escapes his early exposures to freemasonry and corruption in the Flying Squad and a closet gay crime journalist who starts to murder homosexuals due to his dark side!

Alongside these concerns, the key problem is while tracking events over three decades that are well personally known having lived through all of them, I was continually left feeling the events were being subverted to the story and not embellishing it. Leaving aside that Harry Roberts in real life the model for Billy Porter did not escape the police dragnet in his forest hideout , would a corrupt senior policemen at Scotland Yard really drive a Jensen Interceptor and make the point to the provincial copper investigating him for corruption!

I suspect I will read the third and final book out of general interest but do so with some trepidation given my views on the first two!

My dog ate the book, 05 Aug 2007
l had settled down to read this book, got 50 pages into it, and
had to go out. On My return, there was one of my Great Danes
wagging his tale, he had chewed the lot up.
To me it says something, if you are prepared to go out, and
buy it again.
I did. I lived the book. It's certainly gritty, but the
characters come to life. The chase in the story has you
at nerves end.
Jake Arnott, is a superb writer, and a master of the tense.
My only criticism of him, like a few other Authors, we have
to wait ages for a new book. He gives a presence in the
book, and a natural ability to be living the book, and
sometimes knows a little to much.
There is no order in Jakes books,but l would also
recommend The Long Firm.


Not a patch on The Long Firm, 16 Jul 2005
After reading the quite brilliant Long Firm, I couldn't wait to start on this, and I was very disappointed. This book revolves around a bent copper, a sadistic reporter and a low life villain, sounds good on paper doesn't it? But I'm afraid it just doesn't quite hit the mark. The characters just don't excite, and even the Long Firm regulars such as Starks and Thursby seem to have lost their spark. About half way through I actually considered giving up, but I persevered and it was an ok read, but nothing more. If you haven't read an Arnott book go get The Long Firm right this minute, that is one of the best books I've read in years.

The best of the trilogy, 01 Jan 2005
Jake Arnott's novels have a very strong prose style, and are obviously very well researched. He Kills Coppers is, for my money, the strongest of the three - taking in football hooliganism, thatcherism and cop killing. Highly recommended. Put the disappointing BBC adaptation out of your mind and read this.

Highly entertaining slice of sixties gangland London, 27 Jul 2008
Jake Arnott's debut novel offers a depiction of a gay gangster in 1960s London, trying to keep up with a changing world, told from the perspective of five different narrators. The end result is essentially five interlinked novellas, each with a different voice, that combine to tell us about the character, Harry Starks.

Some of the voices work better than others. My favourite section was the first, in which a boyfriend of Harry's tells us what it was like to be his lover and companion - and then how it feels when Starks turned against him. I would have been interested to read the whole novel from this narrator's point of view, but Arnott moves on, with varying degrees of success. The weakest element of the story is its final segment, told from the point of view of a university lecturer who befriends Starks. This section enters melodrama and appears to verge on parody, and makes for a somewhat disappointing finale, though it holds the reader's attention better than, for example, the passages set in Africa, or those told by a B-list actress who seems only a fairweather friend of Harry's and not to know him well.

Nevertheless, despite the variation in quality in the writing across the different sections of the book, this is a highly entertaining read. Arnott takes a different approach to that adopted in most crime fiction and vividly, and for the most part believably, evokes the world he describes for his readers. Harry Starks is an intriguing character, one who makes concerted efforts to find out who has viciously murdered a rent boy he knew, but on the other hand, is responsible himself for so much brutal yet casual violence, including involvement in more than one death. After reading five accounts from those who knew Harry, the reader has a better idea of him, but doesn't yet quite understand him, and this and quite a few loose ends in the storyline left me wanting more.

All-in-all, not perfect, but compellingly written and hugely enjoyable, and I will be reading the follow-ups to "The Long Firm."

Excellent book, 17 Jul 2006
Read the triology long after they first came out...not sure why so many reviewers dislike this one. Thought Truecrime was brilliant. A superb critique of the underbelly of contemporary life, not just cashing in on it or glamourisisng it. Couldn't put it down. Again, as with the previous Arnott books there are the excellent characters of fiction mixed with the backdrop of real life references that gives the book a very real feel to it. As a one time long time London resident really could relate to the settings and the stories....so on a personal level was quite thought provoking. A fine finish to a fantastic trilogy.

Disappointing, 15 Mar 2005
I thoroughly enjoyed both The Long Firm and He Kills Coppers but it wasn't far into Truecrime that I began to lose interest. Partly it was the lacklustre plot lines (Julie's whole story is silly, overlong and ultimately rather tedious), but more than anything the book just doesn't seem to be as well-crafted as its predecessors.

Arnott relies far too much here on clumsy exposition to move the story along (in some places, characters witter on uninterrupted for half a page or more) and where previously his characters spoke convincingly, all too often in this book the dialogue seems forced. There's far too much navel-gazing going on too, and the plot often slows to a crawl. In the end I felt uninvolved with the personalities or the story and was just reading in order to get it finished -- which, sadly, is how it seems like it was written.

Good Not Great, 20 Feb 2005
I liked this book enough (it was my first Arnott) to now read The Long Firm, but it definitely petered out about 3/4 of the way through when too much unreality crept in. I guess Tony was a character from a prior book but his character was very hazy. My biggest problem with the book was Julie, whose Psych 101 motivation never rang even slightly true. Gaz was great and a lot of the dialogue and scenes worked, so it's worth reading.

A compelling and very enjoyable read, 15 Sep 2004
Whilst this doesn't match the brilliance of The Long Firm it is a great book that is superior to much other crime fiction.

I love the way that Jake Arnott creates a story that blends fact and fiction and narrates it via a number of distinct voices. I enjoyed the characters he creates and I thought the plot was pacey enough for me to not want to put it down.

Definitely recommended.

Lacklustre, 09 Jul 2004
Having read the Long Firm and thought that many references and storylines came from the Krays (and in particular John Pearsons brilliant - The Profession of Violence) I wasn't surprised to find TRUECRIME underpinned by another notable Gangster masterpiece - Essex Boys! Jake Arnott has clearly rewritten everything from the Tabloid press and mixed them together with 'arry Starks in a Tarantinnoesque plot line that falls well short of the mark. The references to many other celeberity gangsters, their siblings and well known crime capers is cringingly embarassing in particular the events surrounding the aftermath of the Brinks Mat Bullion robbery. I was definetly mugged in the bookshop

Hard work!, 25 Jul 2008
This book follows three main characters, and it is written in the first person for two of them and the third person for the other. I found this quite annoying, especially as there is no obvious indication when the dialogue changes between characters.

The story really drags. I nearly gave up after 100 pages because nothing significant had happened. Then it picked up for a while. I read another another 100 pages; very little happened and the story seemed to be meandering into another pointless tangent, so I stopped reading.

The plot and characters are flimsy and very sterotypical. Coppers taking bungs from criminals seems to be the main thread of the story, and all corrupt coppers are Freemasons of course!

Don't waste your time reading this book.