The war is long over, but the skills Tony Gérard picked up working with the Resistance continue to serve him well on the mean streets of London.
Tony does a little accounting for friends and some odd jobs for Les Jackson of Hoxton Films. He’s been keeping an eye on one of Jackson’s young actors, the trouble-prone Philip Graham—but apparently not closely enough, for Graham has become involved in the drug trade and has some dangerous criminals after his hide. Jazz-loving Tony has meanwhile taken a shine to Jeannie Summers, a sexy singer whose piano-playing, drug-using husband is arrested for murdering two thugs. So not only does Tony have to try to get Graham out of trouble, but he’s beset by Jeannie’s pleas to help her husband. Even his boss has begged him to help his former wife, who’s dying of cancer, find the daughter she gave up for adoption. Although the various gangs who control London’s neighborhoods generally do their best to avoid conflict, suddenly Tony finds himself in trouble with several of them as he attempts to track down some missing merchandise and come up with satisfactory solutions to his three interrelated problems.
Tony’s second appearance (No Hearts, No Roses, 2011) bolsters its tense tale with plenty of down-and-dirty atmosphere.
