After a small-time criminal's house is firebombed, leaving the owner and his daughter dead, mistrust and uncertainty pervade the formerly well-managed streets: more drug dealers emerge and competition grows. With the failure of a once mutually beneficial relationship between cops and criminals, a battle for survival ensues. Bill James is a pointripe with humor, fast dialogue, and incisive wit, he offers entrance into the shocking and fascinating underbelly of a city and its inherent mysteries.

A deliciously witty addition to a classic series, The Girl with the Long Back heightens the urgency and pace of the tantalizing London underworld in which cops and criminals, and all of their clever asides, are sketched in fantastic detail.

A large, carefully plotted "cash-in-transit" raid goes hopelessly awry when armed policemen intervene to seize the perpetrators. Relatives and friends of the incarcerated are convinced that information the date, the time was leaked by the only man to escape before his arrest. Deputy Constable Colin Harpur and Assistant Constable Desmond Iles are delegated the job of hiding and protecting the informant and his family."