Underground / Collected Stories

UNDERGROUND He's created a life for himself in Deptford while waiting for the past three years for the word from the Big Man that they are ready for the job. His allies are Victor and Timmy. But they got Timmy. Was it the other side, a mob, the police… or another group entirely? He doesn't know. He only knows that his cover is blown. Escaping by train to Brighton, he meets Rachel. They spend time together. It's not supposed to happen, but he begins to care. And this is where the real trouble starts. Because once he returns to Deptford, he finds that allegiances are not what they seem…and his life once lived underground has shifted dangerously into the open.

COLLECTED STORIES Here are five very diverse stories from "the Godfather of British noir." Gary Lovisi, the editor of Hardboiled magazine, claims that "Russell James is a writer every American hard-boiled fan should be reading." The Encyclopedia of Modern Crime Fiction says: "Russell James shines his torch into the crevices of the British underworld and turns what crawls out into some of the best crime fiction being written today." Four of these stories have appeared in British magazines, but none have appeared before in the U.S. And the final and longest story, "How Could it Last It?," is published here for the first time.