DOUBLE TAKE

What’s a copper to do when his snitch’s information is only half-correct? The drugs are where Blind Hugh said they’d be, but where are curry addict Big Benny, finance wizard Ash the Cash, and their dogsbodies Rafik and Julian? Chief Inspector Frank McEnvoy confiscates the cocaine, replaces it with talcum powder, stashes the bags in the most decrepit stationhouse in England, then waits for Big Benny et al. to come after it. Alas, the set-up fails to nail Big Benny, and McEnvoy is forced from the CID in disgrace, while his second-in-command, Jim Driver, is promoted to Inspector. A year later, McEnvoy’s working security at Angel’s Wings Transport when Driver, on a tip from the tattletale Blind Hugh, pops around with the news that Tyler Pharmaceutical’s miracle cancer drug, Coletoxore, is about to be hijacked—by Big Benny, of course—before Angel’s Wings can put it on a flight to Bombay. But wicked Mortlake Eddy is also after the Coletoxore, and the cops have to foil two takeover attempts at Cargo Village, the freight terminal area at Heathrow Airport—even as, unbeknownst to crooks and coppers and even Blind Hugh, still other hands are arranging a drug switcheroo, leading to heavy-duty forklifting, spectacular car crashes, a Driver debacle, and a last laugh for McEnvoy.

Ripley (That Angel Look, 1998, etc.) likes his story so much he tells it twice: first as a short novel, then as a screenplay. Though it hardly bears repeating, this amusing tale just may send you out in search of a hot curry dinner.