Girls - Bill James

For years Panicking Ralph Ember and Mansel Shale have run profitable drugs empires in peaceful cooperation with each other, and ACC Iles will blind-eye their trade as long as it keeps violence off the streets. But this happy arrangement is threatened by foreign dealers moving in and offering punters not just drugs, but exploited girls from Eastern Europe. And bloody gang warfare threatens as a scrabble for territory ensues.

Bill James lives in his native South Wales. He is author of a number of crime novels and thrillers as well as a critical work on Anthony Powell.

One of the kings of the dark hill.
Val McDermid

For many years (James) has been writing some of the most potent fiction in Britain and has created one of the most interesting cop duos around.
The Times

23rd in the 'savagely comic and expertly choreographed' Harpur and Iles series
Guardian

Thieves and thief-takers are at it like knives in another dodgy gavotte... quite brilliant'
Literary Review