Book 28

Vacuum

by Bill James

Published 8 July 2011

Protection

by Bill James

Published 25 April 1988
Underworld boss Bernie Tenderness Mellick is certainly paying a heavy price for maiming Ivor Wright with a blowlamp. For Wright's men have now kidnapped his eleven-year-old son Graham. Senior policemen Colin Harpur and Desmond Iles see their chance to nail a ruthless, sadistic villain.

Pay Days

by Bill James

Published 24 May 2001
Chief Superintendent Colin Harpur and his brilliant, amoral superior ACC Desmond Iles face a dilemma that's both political and personal when they suspect a police officer of taking bribes from underworld criminals Panicking Ralph Ember and Top Banana Mansel Shale. Is Nivette doing some unauthorized undercover work—as Harpur himself...Read more

Naked at the Window

by Bill James

Published 14 November 2002
Big drug dealer Ralph Ember stumbles on a ghastly surprise when he and sidekick Beau Derek arrive at the house of yachtsman Barney Coss, his bulk supplier: Barney and his two women have been savagely murdered—and the murderers, three drug rivals from London, are still in the house. Beau...Read more

Top Banana

by Bill James

Published 13 September 1996
A girl is shot down, caught in the crossfire between two rival drug gangs. For Chief Constable Lane there is only one option - infiltrate the gangs and rid his patch of this menace. Meanwhile, DCS Harpur, investigating Mandy's death, discovers that the bullets were not fired by the...Read more

Easy Streets

by Bill James

Published 28 October 2004
The twenty-first novel in the savagely comic and expertly choreographed Harpur and Iles series.

Girls

by Bill James

Published 9 November 2006
For years Panicking Ralph Ember and Mansel Shale have run profitable drugs empires in peaceful cooperation with each other, and ACC Iles will blind-eye their trade as long as it keeps violence off the streets. But this happy arrangement is threatened by foreign dealers moving in and offering punters...Read more

Come Clean

by Bill James

Published 20 March 1989
Sarah Iles' latest young lover, Ian Aston, and the seedy gangland club he frequents both possess the intense attraction of the forbidden. When one night at the Monty they witness a fatal knifing, they unwittingly learn far too much for their own good of a deadly plot that could,...Read more

Play Dead

by Bill James

Published 1 January 2013
Following a deep investigation into an incident in another Force, Colin Harpur and his boss, Assistant Chief Constable Desmond Iles, uncovered an unpalatable truth: there is corruption in the ranks. Corruption which led to murder.

Lovely Mover

by Bill James

Published 19 June 1998
Threatened by the invasion of rival drug syndicates, and a spy, nicknamed Lovely Mover, Keith Vine kills his best dealer as a warning to others that he is in charge. Vine's new partner DCS Harpur finds himself in the position of both covering up a murder at the same...Read more

Eton Crop

by Bill James

Published 21 May 1999
Pursued from the shadows, Simon Pilgrim fled in terror from the floating restaurant Eton Boating Song. In the bar on the Eton, he had the choice spot, discreetly purveying high-stakes drugs to the Eton's well-to-do patrons. Now he's dead, his throat cut, and the police know that the drug...Read more

The Detective Is Dead

by Bill James

Published 25 August 1995
"The detective is dead" because the old process of justice doesn't work any more. No one, including Detective Chief Superintendent Colin Harpur, would testify at the trial; Harpur refused to name his informant. The three murderers who were being tried are part of a savage underworld struggle for the...Read more

The Lolita Man

by Bill James

Published 21 July 1986
Five teenage girls have been raped and murdered, and the criminal is still at large. Detective Chief Superintendent Colin Harpur, assigned to the case, is a tough hunter, but so is "the Lolita man," watching the schoolyards. Now it looks as if the daughter of Harpur's friend may be...Read more

Gospel

by Bill James

Published 23 October 1992
At nineteen years old, Colin Harpur's girlfriend Denise Prior knows little about criminals, and even less about the law. When Denise drifts into the social circle of Harpur's number-one informant Jack Lamb, and one of the criminals is shot to death during a robbery, Denise's life is suddenly in...Read more

Panicking Ralph

by Bill James

Published 22 August 1997
Ralph Ember, owner of the shady drinking club The Monty, longs to be respectable. The trouble is, his money comes from big-time drug dealing, where reputations are dubious and the risks are truly murderous. No wonder he's nicknamed "Panicking Ralph," because of the terrors that seize him at times...Read more

In Good Hands

by Bill James

Published 26 August 1994
Fear grips the drug underworld after two principals in the trade are murdered, and even ACC Desmond Iles is under a cloud of suspicion. Now the chief players start closing in on a fortune, while Iles, Chief Constable Mark Lane, and Detective Chief Superintendent Colin Harpur plunge into their...Read more

You'd Better Believe It

by Bill James

Published 1 January 1985
Nominated for England's Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award in 1986, You'd Better Believe It introduced Detective Chief Superintendent Colin Harpur to reader in England and the United States. Harpur's domain is a small seaport city south of London. It's not unusual for the big-town criminals to consider such...Read more

In the Absence of Iles

by Bill James

Published 28 August 2008
Assistant Chief Constable Desmond Iles’s absence from a police undercover conference sets the stage for the moral and practical dilemmas faced by one of his colleagues, ACC Esther Davidson, as she works to bring down the largest gang operating in her sector. The role of undercover agents—or “out-located” officers—is...Read more

Pix

by Bill James

Published 15 November 2007
There’s intrigue right from the start of this new entry in Bill James’s Harpur and Iles series: A houseful of paintings is stolen and the body of a finely dressed stranger is discovered. Villainous drug dealers fight for dominance on Constable Iles and Detective Harpur’s turf. While the kingpins...Read more

Hotbed

by Bill James

Published 5 November 2009
For years drug baron Ralph Ember has run his crooked enterprises peacefully enough alongside those of his rival, Mansel Shale. Their empires have been tolerated by Assistant Chief Constable Desmond Iles as a way of keeping violence off the streets. But are things changing? Karl Marx’s bleak theory that...Read more