Payback
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3.7 • 3 Ratings
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- $2.99
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- $2.99
Publisher Description
After ten years away, ex-boxer Floyd Carter comes back for his brother’s funeral, and to decide what’s to be done with his other brother, the lumbering Ludo whose mental age is barely twelve. But if Ludo knows anything it is that Albie’s death was not an accident. And if Floyd knows anything it is that he will have to sort things out.
In case he thought he had a choice, he is quickly confronted by local hoods who claim that Albie owes ten thousand pounds. And ‘Snake’ Carmichael, upscale nightclub owner and drug supplier to the recently renovated Isle of Dogs, wants Floyd Carter in his team. But was Carmichael behind Albie’s death? Or were the Richardsons involved?
Floyd’s old friend Jamie is hooked on drugs. And Suzie Peters, Floyd’s one-time teenage flame, has an eighteen-year-old mixed-race daughter who sings in Carmichael’s club. Floyd thought his fighting days were over. They aren’t yet.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
British writer James's ( Underground ) American debut crackles with action and with dialogue Hammett or Raymond Chandler might envy. Ex-boxer Floyd Carter returns to South London to bury his older brother Albie--supposedly a hit-and-run victim. But the youngest Carter brother, Ludo (who at the age of 30 has the intelligence of a 12-year-old), insists that the car ``chased'' Albie onto the pavement. Although Floyd has been in Germany for 10 years, he quickly learns that Albie owed a delivery of drugs or a lot of money to some very threatening bad guys. Floyd is drawn back into his past and onto the mean streets of Deptford to deal with warring druglords, hostile cops, a boyhood pal's drug addiction, an old girlfriend's rambunctious teenage daughter and his renewed interest in the girlfriend. How Floyd extricates himself and Ludo from danger is a fascinating, intricate story with a very satisfying ending. James's characters sprint off the page and his portrait of a tough London seldom seen by tourists is strikingly etched. That some criminals sound as though they spend their nights watching American gangster movies of the '40s seems appropriate for this story, which is hard-boiled in the grand, classic style.
