The Road to Redemption
5 primary works • 6 total works
Book 1
Meet Jimmy Costello. Quiet, respectable, God-fearing family man? Or thuggish street-fighter with a past full of dark secrets? Perhaps the answer is somewhere in between …
After Jimmy’s wife dies the conflict inside him is too much and the violent assault he commits on a gangster forces him to leave London and his job with the police and disappear for a while. Now he’s back, on what you might call a divine mission … and to settle a few old scores too.
Through the eyes of his hard-boiled ex-cop, James Green takes us on a thrilling journey from 1960s Kilburn, through war-torn 1970s Africa to the modern streets of a London that seems to have cleaned up its act … until you scratch the surface.
Book 2
Jimmy Costello, hard-man and bad catholic is back and he's studying to be a priest. The same corrupt London CID Sergeant who was last seen in Bad Catholics at the epicentre of a murder investigation and a gangland turf war is now at Duns College in Rome. He may have thought that he could put his old life behind him but Jimmy's past refuses to stay buried. When a visiting Archbishop dies in mysterious circumstances, Jimmy is hand-picked by the Church authorities to look into the case. With local copper Inspector Ricci, Jimmy follows the investigation from the streets of the Holy City via Glasgow and an old friend, back to Rome where they stumble on a devastating plot. But who is responsible? Jimmy's problem is that he's too good a detective. Secrets have a way of finding him out but maybe this is a secret too far.
Book 4
Ex-copper and `fixer’ for the Catholic Church Jimmy Costello is sent to Spain to investigate when a senior cleric is accused of being part of ETA, the armed Basque separatist movement. Given his usual missions, he’s not entirely surprised when he finds himself implicated in a murder as soon as he lands in Santander, and remains calm as the evidence seems to point to an old gangland contact who has set himself up as a crime writer – but do old dogs really learn new tricks?
Despite the ongoing attentions of the local police, Jimmy’s still not shaken – even when the bodies start to mount up – until the trail leads him to some surprising remainders of his violent London past …
Book 5
'Fixer' for the Vatican Jimmy Costello always liked Paris, but never got the chance to spend much time there. Now his boss in Rome wants him to go back. It's a simple job: find the missing owner of a piece of valuable property. But Jimmy's not the only one looking.
What is he looking for and who else wants it so badly? No one seems to have the answers. This time Jimmy is on his own.
Book 6
Sixth in the Road To Redemption series that was shortlisted for the Specsavers Crime Thriller Awards
Jimmy Costello has lived his life on both sides of the law but, when it comes to the art world, he’s out of his depth.
When a stolen art scandal envelopes the Catholic Church in Vancouver, Jimmy’s boss in Rome sends him to clear it up.
Jimmy works hard but he’s tired and fears he’s losing his touch. There’s only one way to unravel this tightly-wound knot - someone has to cut it.
Charlie Bronski, US Air Force security expert turned successful cookery writer, now lives the quiet life with his wife beside the sea in Denmark. So why would anyone plant a bomb under his car?
Recognising it as a professional job, Charlie asks for help from the people who set him up in his new life. They want a favour in return: for him to kill a middle-aged man, a trainee priest who caused them some problems – surely an easy task for someone with Charlie’s military training.
But that man is ex-copper, ex-criminal, Jimmy Costello, a man with powerful friends – and powerful enemies. Will Charlie's past catch up with him before he catches up with Jimmy – and will Jimmy make it through alive?
The third in James Green’s critically acclaimed series featuring his hardboiled former London detective.