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Publishers Weekly
Guttridge's second Brighton mystery falls short of the standard set by its predecessor, City of Dreadful Night (2010), but admirers of the first book still won't want to miss the trilogy's conclusion. After a gory prologue set in the present that leaves the reader hanging in suspense, the action shifts to 1963, starting with some of the fallout from the "Great Train Robbery" of that year and focusing on the coming-of-age of 17-year-old John Hathaway, whose father is one of Brighton's leading thugs. In the final section, set in the present, Det. Sgt. Sarah Gilchrist and ex-Chief Constable Bob Watts look into a series of sadistic murders that may be connected with an earlier massacre that affected both of them as well as with the unsolved real-life 1934 Brighton Trunk Murder. References to 1960s celebrities lend color but otherwise distract from the main story. (June)
The Last King of Brighton
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ISBN-13:
9781780100173
- Publisher: Severn House Publishers
- Publication date: 10/01/2011
- Series: The Brighton Trilogy , #2
- Sold by: Barnes & Noble
- Format: eBook
- Pages: 272
- File size: 740 KB
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The new gripping mystery following City of Dreadful Night - A man impaled on the South Downs. Another skinned alive. A skeleton found beneath the West Pier, its feet encased in concrete. Brighton has been invaded. But this is no mere power struggle between rival mobsters; the motives for the killings stretch back through the decades, to an explosive forty-year-old secret Brighton's crime king John Hathaway would rather forget. But someone else remembers - and that someone has decided that revenge is a dish best served cold . . .
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Booklist
There's plenty to enjoy in Guttridge's latest procedural starring Chief Constable Robert Watts of the Brighton police. Good words, well used. Clipped, incisive prose. And it's fun to meet a type banished too long from crime fiction, literate bad guys, such as a brutal killer quoting The Rubaiyat and providing a translation. Michael Caine's film career is discussed. Not to be outdone, a copper displays familiarity with E. M. Forster. But the plot is a problem. About an especially nasty gang of Eastern Europeans invading a crime lord's turf, it moves forward in a series of tableaus, nearly each dazzling in itself but seemingly only very tenuously connected to the others. It's partly a point-of-view problem. With all the cops, killers, victims, and relatives, who's telling the story? Readers familiar with this second-in-a-series' predecessor, City of Dreadful Night (2010), may find it easier to get their bearings, but those new to it may feel stranded, wondering what trunk murder and train robbery everybody is talking about.Kirkus Reviews
The reason for a brutal present-day crime near Brighton, England, lies in the past.
August 1963. The Great Train Robbery is headline news, but life is good for teen John Hathaway. While his parents are away on holiday, he's having an affair with Barbara, an older woman who works for Dennis Hathaway, his father. He plays in a band with some friends and leads a fairly normal life until he begins to realize that Dennis is a major crime boss. Slowly John and his bandmate Charlie get drawn into Dennis' enterprises. Forced to acknowledge his own propensity for violence, he tries to keep it buried until his father has Charlie kill Elaine, John's latest girlfriend, who's seen too much for her own good. Fast-forward to the present day: John has moved the family money into mostly legitimate businesses, but he's become the target of Balkan criminals who will stop at nothing to take over. Ex–Chief Constable Bob Watts, his security expert friend Tingley and DS Sarah Gilchrist all become involved in a dangerous effort to stop the newcomers. The trio still hope to unravel the truth about the police raid gone bad that cost Watts his job and prevent the Balkan influx threatening Brighton.
Best appreciated by those who have read the first in this historical series(City of Dreadful Night,2010, etc.). Intertwined crimes dating back to the 1930s and years of police corruption are explored in this darkly fascinating noir procedural, which once again leaves much to be revealed next time.