City of Tiny Lights
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- $17.99
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
***Now a film starring Riz Ahmed, James Floyd, Billie Piper, Cush Jumbo, Roshan Seth and Antonio Aakeel***
Meet Tommy Akhtar, Ugandan Asian cricket fan, devoted son, and not very successful private investigator with offices over his brother Gundappa's mini-cab firm in deepest West London.
He's just woken up from his hangover (combing the parting on his toungue) when his next case comes through the door. It looks like just another investigation when hooker Melody comes into his office asking him to find her co-worker, Natasha, last seen meeting new client at a bar in Shepherd's Market.
But as the search for Natasha intensifies, Tommy's world becomes increasingly sinister. He is drawn into a murder investigation, the criminal underworld, the world of fundamentalist religion and maybe even terrorist activities. Neate brilliantly explores the oddball underbelly and wierd cultural mix of London - The City of Tiny Lights - today and questions just what it really means to be British now. . .
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
British author Neate's comic mystery introduces an intriguing hero, Tommy Akhtar, a Ugandan-Indian London PI, whose r sum includes a stint with the mujahideen in Afghanistan. When a hooker hires Akhtar to find a missing friend and colleague, he gets caught up in a larger drama involving a murdered MP and the murky doings of terrorists and various intelligence agencies. After the energy and frantic momentum of the opening scenes, the pace slows as the plot becomes a little too convoluted for its own good. More seriously, with the recent bombings in the London Underground still fresh in the public mind, some may find Neate's efforts at humor and satire to be premature. While Neate may not be in Kinky Friedman's class as a humorist or prose stylist, this book should appeal to Kinkster fans. Neate's novel Twelve Bar Blues won the 2001 Whitbread Novel Award.
