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BLUE KNIGHT, WHITE CROSS by Colin Campbell

BLUE KNIGHT, WHITE CROSS

by Colin Campbell

Pub Date: Dec. 1st, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-7278-6816-9
Publisher: Severn House

Two experienced police officers find themselves in trouble as they investigate a car theft in a dangerous Yorkshire housing estate.

Steve Decker and Dave Black are tough coppers whose friendship goes back many years. They supported each other through Dave’s divorce and Steve’s problems with a sick child and a wife who handles the stress by drinking. Now Steve is in the hospital clinging to life after being bashed with a paving stone at the White Cross estate. Slowly, Steve relives the day in his mind: the routine briefing before starting his shift, the equally routine incidents like investigating an egg-throwing episode, the hunt for a stolen car involved in several dangerous and damaging incidents. The chief suspect is Shaun Pennington, a much-arrested teen responsible for most of the crime in the area Black and Decker patrol on foot. With Dave’s support Steve struggles to remember, flatlines, recovers and keeps repeating the events leading up to the moment the paving stone comes crashing down on his head, until in a electrifying conclusion he finally recalls what happened to him and Dave.

Campbell’s 30 years as a Yorkshire policeman infuse this unusual debut procedural with grim reality and the harsh humor that helps keep the coppers sane.