Reading the Streets - Michael Riley - Bog

Reading the Streets When you need a cover-up give the job to an old disgraced detective and, just to make sure it is a screw-up, give him a colleague with a drink problem; a bent cop and a lush; perfect - BAD CALL. Separated from his beloved grandson, in hock to the local mob, Detective Inspector Botley survives in the world of computer policing only on instincts that can read the streets. Once a star of an elite squad he is parked now out of sight and out of mind on the night shift. One warm night in a central London police station, when he is almost out of whisky, a call comes in and nothing can be the same again. It is the end of the 70's and the mystery starts when an old thief and his apprentice break into a London town house that is supposed to be empty. They see something they should not have seen. The younger man is brutally killed but the older escapes to become a reluctant witness. He describes a strange man running wildly across a park. When this witness is professionally assassinated Botley knows for sure that there is a bigger crime at stake. His feeling of dread is magnified when, in passing a police cell, he glimpses a terrified look in a prisoner's eyes. The look haunts him. To make matters worse; exactly why have Scotland Yard lumbered him Donna, a woman from Scotland apparently searching London for a lost colleague? Botley senses that the dark side of London is playing an unseen hand to undermine him. Clues point him towards a high-ranked politician but his raw cunning spots both plants and treacherous colleagues. When the mystery gets close to his own family Botley comes to recognize that the case is his last chance to redeem himself. He must now confront the hardest question - whether he is able to do the right thing.