Briefe aus Rom Book

Not so much a sequel to The Long Firm as much as it is a companion piece, returning to the grimy streets of London's west end in the 60's and 70's for a story about crooked cops, small time gangsters and the gutter press. He Kills Coppers is something of a blend of James Ellroy and Guy Ritchie, but the formula that worked so well in The Long Firm fails here. Part of the reason is that the characters aren't quite as interesting in He Kills Coppers. There's no Harry Starks or Jack the Hat. There's also a feeling of "been there, done that" to the whole thing. A lot of the plot twists are fairly predictable. I also wasn't feeling the time jumps. Just when it felt like the story was settling into a rhythm, the narrative would suddenly skip forward 5 or more years.

Despite that I didn't hate it at all, and was enjoying it well enough, until I got the the whimper of the ending. It felt very underwhelming, like the story just kind of stuttered to a halt. Some interesting ideas (I think a book about a career cop watching the Met change from the 60's through to the 80's could be really interesting) that weren't fleshed out enough.