Hear Me Talking to You - Tapa dura

Detective Sally Bithron has been tipped off by an informer about a clandestine meeting in Cardiff, Wales, of two sets of drug pushers. But her stakeout goes wrong when violence and murder ensues. Three men are convicted; but there is a fourth, Frank Latimer, who is found not guilty partly because of Sally's evidence, or lack of it, and partly because of the lying testimony of Frank's girlfriend. But Sally and Frank grew up together, and were briefly childhood sweethearts. Could her evidence have been influenced by this? The one grows up on the side of law and order; the other. . . Sally's superiors are convinced Frank was guilty. And so are the patriarchs of a big, and very unpleasant, South London crime gang whose daughter, brutally battered in the bungled meeting, eventually dies in a Cardiff hospital after months on a life support system. Their code demands revenge; perhaps against Sally's informant, and perhaps against Frank and Sally. And perhaps against all three. . .

Bill James explores the inner tensions of the police constable in the right place at the wrong time, and examines the motives of her ambitious and conviction-hungry superiors. This is a powerful novel in the tradition of the author's titles outside his famous Harpur and Iles series, such as the most recent from Severn House, Forget It, Double Jeopardy and Between Lives.