The Strip, The Dream, The Casino
A review of the first three books because the fourth is yet to be published.
I recently reviewed a book series set in the Ganglands of London over several decades, and Amazon being Amazon decided to show me books that I might like having read them.
Well Amazon hit the spot with this series, it is an addictive read from the first chapter of the first book, The Strip, into the second The Dream and right up to the last chapter of the third The Casino.
The series is set on the Gold Coast of Australia in the 1980s its a real old school crime noir.
Back then The Gold Coast was an up and coming place which bore more than a passing resemblance to Londons Soho of the 60s and 70s.
Run by corrupt politicians and small time gangsters who are gaining notoriety and strength.
The Police are corrupt beyond belief and a racket they nearly all take part in, known colloquially as “The Joke” , is making them very comfortable.
What makes it worse still is that most of the police are not only on the take, but they are lazy and unambitious when it comes to solving crime. Why would they want to lock people up who are lining their pockets.
The Queen of crime in the area is Colleen Vinson. A Madam extraordinaire and an extortionist. She has used her brothels to take pictures and films of all of her more powerful clients and she basically has everyone of any importance in her pocket. From street cops to judges, from local business men to the highest politicians, she has something on all of them.
Anybody who steps out of line with Colleen can expect to be the victim of, at best, some very physical violence, at worse they just disappear.
But there are some people trying to make their way legitimately. Trying desperately to clean up the area from within the Police, and elsewhere.
The Strip
The scene setting book that contains a cracking story and introduces most of the main players in the series, but don’t get to engaged with any of them, because nobody is safe and not all of them will make it to book two.
Initially there are six murders, which the local police are desperate to lump into one case blaming a serial killer.
Detective Lana Cohen has been leant to the task force looking for the killer. Her boss in Brisbane also wants her to keep an eye on the local cops because the rumours of their inefficiency and corrupt practices have reached the leaders of the state.
She’s convinced that there is more than one killer, why would one killer strangle their first victims then completely switch methods and start shooting the later victims.
She’s teamed up with Henry Loch an Officer whose career is already in tatters and has no real interest in solving the case.
She does find a cop who is willing to help and wants to get the Gold Coast clean. Detective Bruno Karras is as close to a clean Officer as she can find, but can she trust him, and what is the secret he is harbouring.
The story climaxes in the last few chapters and as with all of these books it can be read as a standalone but it sets the scene for book two.
The Dream
The Gold Coast has its very own version of Disney World, or it will have if its owner ever finishes the build. And that is the problem there are a lot of powerful people that want the project finished, and some that don’t There is a lot of money invested in and around the project. Clean and dirty money.
Mark Nichols is a fixer who works for politicians and he’s sent to make sure that Fantasy Land is opened on the latest deadline. What he finds is a dysfunctional family business being worked by corrupt officials.
Far from solving the issues Nichols becomes part of the problem, getting entwined in the drugs and prostitution surrounding the project and inevitably becoming one of Colleen Vinson’s victims.
Bruno Karras is still on the force and he is on the hunt for a missing family, but he’s not the only one. Private Investigator Amy Owens is also carrying out an investigation that brings her close to Karras. They might want the same outcome but it’s for completely different reasons.
How does the missing family tie in with Fantasy Land. Well on the Gold Coast everything seems to revolve around drugs and prostitution. Surprisingly that means that Colleen Vinson is involved.
Karras and Owen both need to be on their guard.
The Casino
This story is like the splintered glass of a broken window, every crack leads to a single point. There is not one word in this book that is wasted in the weaving of a brilliant story.
The last few chapters bring it all together in a perfectly understandable conclusion.
A severed hand found on a beach brings Detective Lana Cohen back to the fore of the ongoing story.
She’s back on the Gold Coast in a dead end job, punishment for her involvement in solving the crimes in the first book.
She is still trying desperately to compile enough information on the corruption in the police force to bring the Joke down and clean up the force, but she has to do that in her own time, between mundane police tasks.
She starts to work with Vince Walter’s, and Internal Investigations Officer once known as Miami Vince because of his wild life style he claimed was all part of bringing under cover. But he’s an addict and his addictions are not as under control as he tries to make out.
Ewan Hayes is a private investigator who is hired to find a missing person. This person is also part of Cohen and Walter’s investigation.
Everything leads to, and revolves around the newly completed super Casino Complex, the first on the Gold Coast and Colleen Vinsons Dream, but is it hers, no spoilers allowed and it would spoil the previous book.
What I can say is Colleen’s not happy and she is looking for some missing people herself.
As I said earlier this is a complex story and at times, as enthralling as it is, I wondered how it would all tie in but it does, and out of a brilliant three book series, so far, this is the best of the three.
I can’t wait for book four to be published to see how this is all going to end.
I was interested that in the acknowledgements at the end of the book Iain Ryan thanks authors he has read who have influenced him. One name stands out for me as being really relevant. James Ellroy. The writing style is not the same but the complexity of the stories, the way one book naturally acts as a stepping stone into the next, the way no character is safe, the way that a chapter in book one somehow has relevance in another chapter in later books, all make this series an equal to Ellroy’s trilogies and quartets.
For those with Kindleunlimited the first two books are available free in the U.K.
Pages: The Strip 438, The Dream 448, The Casino 444 Publisher: Lamb House
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