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Crime reporter Laurie Lane is having a bad times of things. His country singer wife has run off with an older man, the thrusting new news editor at work reckons he's fiddling his expenses, and his colleague seems to think Laurie can solve the mystery of whoever is stuffing his trousers down the toilet. And then he gets the call from Charlie Hook, the last of the old London gangsters. Hook wants Laurie to ghost-write his autobiography. Laurie's decidedly under-whelmed by this opportunity. But he ends up with a story of a different kind when Hook is found murdered – and dodgy Russians, enemies out for revenge and sinister family members are all in the frame. Duncan Campbell's an old-fashioned crime beat man, and the book captures perfectly the confusion of the old guard in a world of podcasts and digital cameras. But he never makes you feel like he's looking back nostalgically to the days of the Krays and the other East End gangsters. There's no glamorising of that 1960s scenes, or even the faintest echo of "he was hard, but he was fair and he loved his mother" (to paraphrase Monty Python shamelessly!) This is Noughties London, with Russian crime bosses out to grab a piece of the action. Laurie is a rather appealing, if bemused hero, surrounded by eccentric colleagues, a bossy teenage daughter and a rather out of the ordinary quiz team, who manages – sometimes more by luck than judgement – to stay one step ahead of the news desk. The book loses a little bit of steam when it moves temporarily outside of England to Thailand, but soon picks up speed again. I try not to judge a book by a cover, but I admit with IF IT BLEEDS that the rather naff cover of out-of-focus heavies and a tasteless floral tribute nearly put me off. The paperback's not much better, being redolent of the 1970s macho man cop shows. But ignore them – the book is pure gold. Campbell has an ear for dialogue and an eye for the absurd. You'll find any number of laugh out-loud moments and wonderful cameo characters – the Vicar, an old-school crime reporter, is a fantastic creation. The title comes from the old newspaper adage 'if it bleeds, it leads'. What you've got here is a cracking good yarn, told with verve and humour. Can we have a follow-up?
Reviewed by Sharon Wheeler, September 2009
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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