The Business of Dying
(Dennis Milne: book 1): an explosive and gripping page-turner of a thriller from bestselling author Simon Kernick
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- €4.49
Publisher Description
A captivating, adrenalin-fuelled thriller that will keep you hooked from Sunday Times bestselling author Simon Kernick, the UK's answer to Harlan Coben.
"Simon Kernick writes with his foot pressed hard on the pedal. Hang on tight!" - Harlan Coben
"Simon Kernick writes great plots, great characters, great action" - Lee Child
"Read it. You won't be disappointed." -- ***** Reader review
"An ingenious plot." -- ***** Reader review
"It's twists and turns are as breathtakingly exciting as is the relentless pace of the story." -- ***** Reader review
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HE'S A FULL TIME COP AND A PART TIME HIT MAN. AND HE'S BEEN SET UP.
It's a cold November night, and DS Dennis Milne is waiting 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 he senses all is not quite right.
This time, instead of shooting drug dealers, he kills two customs officers and an accountant.
The hunter has become the hunted. With his colleagues and his enemies closing in on him, Milne must use all of his skills, just to stay alive.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
British author Kernick shows every sign of being a major talent in his debut novel, a gritty, noir police procedural. Seemingly a cold-blooded hit man, Dennis Milne turns out to be a London detective sergeant committed, after years of dealing with sordid crimes and mind-numbing cruelty, to pursuing justice as he defines it. Milne's personal code of ethics is compromised when he learns that his latest victims weren't the drug dealers whose deaths wouldn't burden his conscience but two customs agents and an accountant. His decision to spare the life of a potential eyewitness places him in jeopardy both from his colleagues on the force and from those who paid him for the killings. At the same time, Milne doggedly tries to identify a young hooker's murderer, and persists in rejecting the official theory of the case. Kernick does a masterful job of making Milne sympathetic, despite his callous brutalities, by combining a captivating first-person narrative with emotionally complex characterization. The portrayal of the harsh realism of the mean city streets is complemented by the revelations of the secret lives of the supporting characters with their masks of public respectability. Powerful prose, tight plotting and a clever fair-play puzzle add up to a remarkable first effort.