Layer Cake
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4.4 • 8 Ratings
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
The inspiration for the major motion picture starring Daniel Craig: a high-octane crime novel set in the dangerous London underworld of the 1990s.
Kingpins, dealers, rival gangs, false allegiances, bad faith, and good money. There are many levels to the world of drugs lurking beneath the polished surface of London—a "layer cake" of crime that can chew up and spit out even the most experienced of players. Though he's only twenty-nine, our narrator ("If I told you my name, you'd be as clever as me") has made a small fortune in cocaine, enough to retire by thirty if he plays his cards right.
But then word comes down that Jimmy Price, one of the biggest Dons in the city, has a job for him, one last big score that could set him up for good. All he has to do is find Charlotte Ryder—and then figure out how to escape the tangled web of the underworld alive.
A high-intensity novel filled with bluffs and double crosses, dangerous enemies and even more treacherous allies, Layer Cake is a "walloping debut" (Kirkus Reviews), guaranteed to take you on a breathless, breakneck ride from the first page to the final con.
"A storming piece of work: funny and serious by turns, with an abiding sense of conviction." —The Guardian
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The worst thing about drug dealing, whether you're a classy top dealer trading millions or a down-and-out street pusher, is that you have to relate to a lot of total idiots loudmouths and tough-guy wannabes who aren't afraid to "get nicked by old bill and thrown in the boob" (arrested by the police and jailed). The unnamed main character of Connolly's flawless, lightning-swift pulp crime drama rich in the language of the British underworld is a smoothly diplomatic 29-year-old cocaine dealer who has earned a respected place among England's Mafia elite. He manages high-level trafficking with a tough old veteran partner, Mister Mortimer, a man who has seen his share of prison and deadly fights. Just as the young dealer is eyeing an early retirement from the business, big boss Jimmy Price hands down a tough assignment: find Charlotte Ryder, the missing rich princess daughter of Jimmy's old pal Edward, a powerful construction business player and gossip papers socialite. Complicating matters are two million pounds' worth of Grade A ecstasy, a brutal neo-Nazi sect and a whole series of double crossings. Navigating the many levels of the international underworld, Connolly convincingly chronicles his anti-hero's transformation from a turn-the-other-cheek diplomat to a revenge-charged hit man, setting his sights on anyone who stands in his way. It's the good bad guys against the bad bad guys in this brilliantly crafted, linguistically dense, European wise-guy tale, and readers will find themselves gunning for the triumph of lesser evil. FYI:Guy Ritchie has optioned the film rights to Layer Cake.
