He Kills Coppers: A Novel by Jake
Arnott
Arnott Does It Again.
The smoking-hot bestseller from London
A chance encounter in broad daylight. Three London policemen pull over a
car and are gunned down. A number of people are irrevocably affected.
Sid, a tabloid journalist who himself harbors more lurid personal scandal
than anyone he condemns in print. Detective Sergeant Frank Taylor,
officially on the rapid promotion track but increasingly conflicted about his
identity as a cop and the hidden corruption in the department. Ex-soldier
Billy Porter, who has drifted into a life of crime and onto the rapid track to
perdition. His violent skills for survival are all he has. He is immensely
sympathetic, and a killer.

Like Puzo and Robert Daily before him, Jake Arnott finds in the private
realities of marginalized, desperate people, a longing for redemption that
transforms their discontent into the forces and truths that underlie our lives.
Personal Review: He Kills Coppers: A Novel by Jake Arnott
Arnott's second volume is part of a three volume series, all covering many
of the same characters, and time from the "swinging" 60's through the
Thatcher era into the mid-90's in London's world of crime/police/media.
Focused on London's criminal class, police, and some odd psychopaths,
the three books cover intertwined stories, some of which begin in volume
1, and others that wind-up in volume 3. No its not Ellroy, but that is a
stupid comparison, style wise, and story wise. Instead, compare Arnott's
work to Martin Amis, and see the difference -- intersting, albeit homicidal,
characters, people aware of their own fame, like professional athletes,
except their event is evil doing, violaters of England's class system, yet
slaves to it. To Americans, the characters are sometimes not easily
accessible - the "bent" coppers do love their wives, fall out with their
children, and range from kingpin masonic evildoers, to members of "the
firm within the firm" who beleive in their work of keeping order, and seedy
members of the aristocracy.
American readers will marvel at the "middle class" villains, living in
Surrey mansions next door to rock stars, and miss the jab of class
consciousness. The struggle within the "Met" to gain control over the
police aparatus, separated between the "uniform" versus the "suits" stands
our view of police on its head. Here the "uniforms", the working class "plod"
seize control from the "suits" of Scotland Yard (and TV fame), the corrupt
aspiring middle class of policedom ---JUST AS in crime, the same sort of
revolution takes place. By the end of volume three, the "great stately"
villains of voloume 1, have become media darlings under Tony Blair,
selling juicy biographies, the stars of trendy 90's movies like "The Krays."
Ellroy and other Americans should be so lucky to get this story
organized -- Ellroy especially is dynamite on 40's and 50's police
corrpution in LA. the dawn of 60's arayan opression. BUT, where is the
time of Rodney King's abusers, the OJ police more concerend with their
hairstyles and appearances on "E" TV than how much evidence was
planted (as in the Rampart scandal) or the LAPD "gang bang" mentality
which lead young patrol and CHP officers to create, and proudly wear their
own "gang tattoos."
Arnott opens up a wonderful window into London's underground..
openly gay mob bosses (recall what happened to Tony Sporano's
underling, 40 years later than these stories), serial killer tabloid hacks, bent
to corrput cops, academic crime groupies, and the emerging 90's industry
of gangster nostalgia (Guy Ritchie's movie career).
Together these three volumes make as magnetic a read as Ellroy, with
a lower voltage style, but just as sharp a shot to the jaw pacing and story

telling, and a unique and undiscovered world for American readers. I'm
only sorry there isn'at a fourth volume???
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