The Business Of Dying - Tapa dura

A gritty, authentic crime debut set in London's King's Cross, featuring a cool morally ambivalent cop who freelances as a part-time assassin.

It's a typical cold November night and DS Dennis Milne, a very untypical policeman, is in the car park of the Traveller's Rest hotel awaiting his instructions to kill three unarmed men. Cynical and jaded, Milne earns money on the side by doing what he does best, punishing the bad guys. But this times he's been duped. Instead of blowing away some notorious drug-dealers, he kills two respectable customs officers and an accountant, their deaths starting off an investigation that sees him, his sideline and his conscience heading for trouble. Less than 12 hours later Milne is out on the streets again trying to solve a gruesome murder. 18-year-old Miriam Fox is found dead by Regent's Canal - her throat slashed. Determined to right a monstrous wrong, Milne's persistent enquiries soon implicate fellow police officers, and the mysterious Carla Graham, manager of the hostel where Miriam was last seen alive. Increasingly desperate to hunt down Miriam's killer, Milne realises that he has become involved in a den of inquity more shocking than he could have imagined. Can Milne evade arrest for his own crimes and solve a case, so sickening that it may provide the key to his personal redemption? The clock is ticking and everyone's watching their back as a great war of morality is fought in the mind of one renegade policeman.