From the title to the evocative cover showing a man in a trench coat and fedora, everything about Phil Lecomber’s second novel is designed to suggest we are stepping into classic detective fiction. However, the author has swapped the blinding glaze of Raymond Chandler’s LA for the grubby backstreets of pre-war London, and any glamour present is of a peculiarly grubby British type.
Cockney private detective George Harley has to straddle two different worlds in his professional life and as a result is not really at home in either. He can’t work without the tacit approval of the police but they are far from convinced of his honesty. Yet he’d get nowhere without the trust of the criminal classes who he depends upon for gossip and information. Meanwhile, they have to trust him not to betray them to the authorities. This double life is a fine line to walk, and any misstep could become a deadly problem for Harley in his latest case.
A 15-year-old girl has run away to London and Harley’s job is to fins her and bring her back to her parents. Alice has been forced on to the game, and Harley knows who her pimp is. He finds her at a John’s house, but isn’t prepared for what he discovers there. One girl is chained to a bed, drugged and unconscious. The room in which she is held is covered in nonsensical ramblings and shocking drawings. He saves Alice and the other girl, but the man, Turpin, kills himself rather than be captured.
Discovered in Turpin’s flat are at least 10 copies of the latest literary sensation, A Reflection In Ice by Alasdair Cassina, and the writing on the walls and the diorama in his house are all taken from the controversial book. Cassina has been doing publicity for his novel, espousing an extreme libertine philosophy that is dangerous to public order. It seems as if Turpin has taken Cassina’s ideas to their logical endpoint.
The macabre resolution of his case brings Harley to the attention of one of the few honest coppers on the force. DI John Franklin has been placed in charge of the most important investigation currently underway. Children are being abducted, mutilated and murdered, their corpses left for discovery but the heads do not belong to the bodies. At least two children have been killed, and at least one more has been abducted.
There is public hysteria over what the press have dubbed The Nursery Butcher so catching the killer and finding the missing boy are absolute priorities. Franklin wants Harley to use his underworld contacts to assist the police, and Harley can’t refuse even though he knows he’s treading a very thin line in working with the police on an investigation.
Harley’s investigation takes him into London’s demi-monde of madams and pimps, gangsters and dealers, from the city’s poorest areas to the wealthy dilettantes who delight in slumming it. It’s a complicated plot, and at times I had difficulty keeping track of the large number of characters who move in and out of the story. Perhaps they add to the evocative portrayal of swinging London, but I felt the novel might have been better served with a smaller cast; I sometimes struggled a little trying to understand how all the different pieces fitted together. As for the characters, Harley is an engaging protagonist, dependable and effective. Perhaps though he is a little too likeable and he may have benefitted from a darker side. Lecomber puts him through the wringer though as events develop and it will be interesting to see how he changes in any next book.
These are minor quibbles though, and Midnight Streets has much to recommend it. It’s heavy on atmosphere, packed with period detail and slang, and delivers an emotional gut punch of an ending.
We’ll take you back to 2014, when we reviewed Phil Lecomber’s first book, Mask Of The Verdoy.
Titan Books
Print/Kindle
£7.99
CFL Rating: 4 Stars
