Come Clean(1989)

Bill James

"Le Carré-like psychological ambiguities and fierce double-crosses―from an author who, in an understated sentence or two, can pack a knockout punch."― Kirkus Reviews Sarah Iles's latest young lover, Ian Aston, and the seedy gangland club he frequents both possess the intense attractive of the forbidden. When one night at the Monty they witness a fatal knifing, they unwittingly learn far too much for their own welfare of a deadly plot that could, if successfully executed, rearrange the city's criminal power structure. Immediately, the unfaithful wife and petty criminal become targets of both police and underworld observation.

The Machiavellian ACC Desmond Iles, Harpur's superior officer―a character Booklist calls "ranting, conniving, brutally sarcastic, and painfully funny"―has often taken the center stage in Bill James's novels. Here the betrayed policeman allows a professional crisis to become part of a personal vendetta as well, and Harput is swept direction into the path of escalting subterfuge and violence.

In Come Clean , Bill James once again explores the no-man's land of law enforcement, where human concern and naked expediency stand perennially at odds with each other. And just as in its four predecessors, a memorable drama is played out against James's striking and unique urban tableau.