ONE UNDER

Digging into an architect’s suicide reveals all manner of felonious perversion in London.

There’s no doubt that George Peleponnos topped himself. Video footage shows him throwing himself under the wheels of a train arriving at the Shepherd’s Bush station, and an obliging witness confirms that there was no one near him when he jumped. But Bill Slider, recently promoted to DCI, can’t leave the case alone even though his higher-ups keep telling him that there is no case. He can’t forget the financial connections the North Kensington Regeneration Trust established between Peleponnos and a number of highflying donors or the very recent telephone calls Peleponnos exchanged with Kaylee Adams, a teenage shoplifter killed by a hit-and-run driver out on the fringe of London. And once Slider links Kaylee’s death to that of her friend Tyler Vance, fished out of the Thames six months ago, he’s convinced that something terrible has been going on at the raucous parties local MP Gideon Marler has been holding. When Marler, chair of the Police Select Committee, speaks to Assistant Commissioner Derek Millichip, another NKRT donor whose domain includes Shepherd's Bush, Slider is told in no uncertain terms to cease and desist. Naturally, he soldiers on, uncovering pretty much exactly what you’d expect, but he’s outmaneuvered at every step by well-placed enemies a lot less impulsive than he is.

No prizes for the dogged detective work by Slider and his colleagues (Star Fall, 2015, etc.), who mostly examine phone records and keep interviewing the same forbidden subjects. But if you’re looking for moral outrage in the face of unabashed evil, Shepherd’s Bush is your kind of place.