91. Duffy by Dan Kavanagh

Reading Duffy reminded me of why I enjoy crime and so-called "pulp" fiction so much.  When it is done right, it is quick, efficient and can evoke intense reader reaction at the end.  I believe I picked up Duffy at S.W. Welch's closing sale.  The story starts off with a great line, "The day they cut Mrs. McKechnie, not much else happened in West Byfleet.  And it is a nasty scene, with those really scary English "villains" who are super polite and verbal as they tell you what horrible thing they are going to do to you.  In this case, they tie up and very deliberately cut the shoulder of a housewife and also, really horribly, stuff the cat into the rotisserie oven and cook it.

At first the crime seems to have zero motivation.  Mr. McKechnie is a small businessman in Soho who imports novelty items.  He is having an affair with his secretary (whom the men seemed to know about as they mentioned her name to the wife), but otherwise not mixed up in anything.  Soon after, however, he gets a phone call, again with the creepy eloquence and this time asking for money.  It's a blackmail scheme where the threat is actually done up front.  McKechnie goes to the police, who are basically useless, possibly to the point where they may be in on it.  He does have one friend on the force who refers him to an ex-cop, now security systems installer, called Duffy.

Duffy is almost the typical ex-cop character who got kicked off the force for a scandal.  What makes him interesting is that he is bisexual, the scandal was him picking up an underage boy.  As he begins to investigate back in his old patrol grounds, he finds the case is connected back to him.  He pokes his way around to finding the real badguy, the educated son of a Maltese villain who died in prison named Big Eddy.  This guy is an excellent British criminal leader, just evil as fuck in the guise of a modern businessman.  His success is due to patience and accumulating a rich file on all kinds of people.  When Duffy gets too close and then stupidly disregards his warning, Eddy pulls an incredibly nasty bit of blackmail material on him.  Oh man this was shocking even for me.  

Great, tight little read.  Recommended if you can find it.

Postscript:  This was actually written by Julian Barnes under a pseudonym!