LONDON LARGE
by G & R ROBSON
When pop superstar Bazza Wishbone is murdered in the dead of night at a top London hotel, the whole world looks on in horror. Inspector Harry ‘H’ Hawkins, only just back at work after a mental and physical breakdown, investigates the crime in the only way he knows how; he embarks on a full-blooded search for the truth. But the truth can be brutal.
As the murder investigation gathers pace H discovers his own son has been sucked into the dark world of organised crime. A traumatized young man; and a traumatized father H's hard-boiled instinct is to fight, to protect the things he loves. But when his son becomes his enemy his world view is shattered. How can son be turned against father? H’s gripping mission is no longer a search for a killer; but a quest to save his boy, and exact a terrible vengeance against the man who has corrupted him. And his search is a search for a deeper truth, a truth that will stretch family loyalty - and the love of a father for his son - to its very limits. Blood Is Thicker than Water…Or Is It?
London Large, book two of the Inspector Hawkins series, is a meaty thriller that combines a strong plot with plenty of action.
Bazza Wishbone is having the time of his life. The talent show star is enjoying all the spoils of fame when half his face is blown off. Given his celebrity status, the involvement of a supermodel and the murder scene being the top floor of The Ritz, it’s what you can safely call a high profile case.
Harry ‘H’ Hawkins an the old school copper from south London. The Inspector had been hospitalised after a brutal case involving gang warfare. The mental turmoil has taken a toll and it’s only now (a year later) that he’s back at work, but, as insisted upon by his psychiatrist, he’s given a desk job, not his forte - not how he became London's top copper. H is soon sucked into work he shouldn’t be doing but then he’s the kind of copper to handle things his way.
In addition to the Bazza Wishbone case, there’s lots of violence bubbling under the surface, and menace inside the prison walls, of a London rife with gangs and trafficking. Interlinking cases that are well handled by the authors (brothers from London) whose short chapters help make this a fast paced ride with shocks and twists.
The characters have presence. DS Amisha Bhanushali is especially good and her partner (in both senses) Graham both complement and complicate H’s work. He has several complex relationships to navigate, not least with his own son.
London Large could make a good film and the ending sets up book three well in what has the makings of a cracking trilogy.
About G & R Robson:
Roy and Garry Robson are, unsurprisingly, brothers from the Elephant and Castle, south east London.
Their father (variously a pig farmer, cab driver, haulage contractor and general ducker and diver) and mother (homemaker, cook and doctor’s receptionist with a well timed left hook) raised them and their siblings with some old fashioned south London working class values. These included hard work, respect for their elders and a willingness to duck and dive when required.
They have endeavoured, with varying degrees of success, to maintain the values their parents tried to instill in them. One day, whilst enjoying a beer or two, they decided to write a Crime Thriller Series. They awoke the next day and were surprised to discover that they meant it.
Roy lives in Bromley and works as a Service Delivery Manager for an International IT Consultancy. Garry lives in Krakow and is now, of all things, a sociology professor. Both career choices served as a source of confusion and humour to their parents, who were born and raised in the days before computers and sociology professors existed.
Although Harry ‘H’ Hawkins, the protagonist of the London Large novels, shares some of their old fashioned values, he is based upon neither Garry or Roy, neither of whom would survive the first chapter of a Harry Hawkins novel.