Gallowstree Lane by Kate London @Corvus @annecater #BlogTour #Book #Review

Gallowstree Lane by Kate London

Published by Corvus 

Publication Date 7 February 2019

368 pages

Genre: Contemporary Crime

My thanks to Anne Cater and the publisher for the opportunity to read Gallowstree Lane ahead of publication and provide my unbiased review as part of the blog tour.

Book Description:

Please don't let me die. Please don't. The final words of teenager Spencer Cardoso as he bleeds out on a London street, his life cut short in a single moment of rage.

When a teenage boy steps out of the shadows of Gallowstree Lane and asks a passer-by for help, it's already too late. His life is bleeding out on the London street.

The murder threatens to derail Operation Perseus, a cover police investigation into the Eardsley Bluds, an organised criminal network. Detective Kieran Shaw can't and won't allow that to happen. But fifteen-year-old Ryan has other ideas. He's witnessed the death of his best friend, and now he wants someone to pay...

As loyalties collide, a chain of events is triggered that threatens everyone with a connection to Gallowstree Lane.

My Review:

On reading the description of this book I considered it to be a fair representation of the times we live in. Little did I realise just how close to reality it would be as on the weekend I was reading the book a news report came on TV relating how a 14 year old boy had been deliberately knocked off his moped in London and then stabbed to death by the occupant of the car.  This made what I was reading scarily real and made it hit home much harder than I think it would have otherwise.

Spencer Cardoso and Ryan Kennedy are teenagers living in London, mixed up with a network of gang members who are linked to the criminal fraternity in their area. Their involvement with these people leads to Spencer being stabbed and Ryan witnessing the event and not knowing what to do.  A passing off-duty medic does his best to attend to Spencer yet his efforts are in vain.  Ryan is haunted by Spencer's last words: Please don't let me die.  As a young man Ryan does not know how to deal with the feelings the events raise in him, and this comes out in him wanting angry revenge on whoever did this to his best friend.

We are led through both the police investigations into what has happened on that night and events leading up to the stabbing, and those on the other side of the law - the gang members and long standing feuds which bubble under the surface of every day life. As is often the case, the relatively petty crimes which Ryan and Spencer are guilty of overlap into the world of much more serious crime and those who run the gangs.  Those individuals whose lives are ruined by the gang leaders are introduced to us throughout the book - from a young woman who has taken the wrong path in life to drugs and ultimately prostitution in order to pay for her next fix, to the mother of the youngster who has witnessed his friend's demise, desperate to try and keep her son on the straight and narrow but struggling to steer him away from the peer pressure her son is under. My heart broke for Ryan's mother,Loretta and the drug addicted Lexi, who was just trying to get through one day at a time. In a way I felt for Ryan too, trying to keep in with the people he believed would ease his path through life but who sadly led him directly onto the wrong road.

I found it interesting to read the conflicting viewpoints of the police officers involved, as to whose investigation would take priority once the two cases overlapped. The author clearly has a lot of knowledge on how evidence can be shared (or not) between teams and this knowledge comes across strongly throughout to make for a very credible tale. The events in the police officers' private lives clearly had some influence on how they interacted with one another and I would recommend reading the previous books in the series if you want more detail about this side of the story - I wasn't aware at first that this was not a standalone novel, and while I didn't have the background history it did not spoil the book overall.

A shocking contemporary crime novel which gripped me right from the start and shook me to my core as I realised that this is everyday life for some people who have very few options to get away from the crime culture in their area.

About the Author:

Kate London graduated from Cambridge University and moved to Paris where she trained in theatre. In 2006 Kate joined the Metropolitan Police Service. She finished her career working as part of a Major Investigation Team on SC&O1 - the Metropolitan Police Service's Homicide Command. She resigned from the MPS in August 2014. Her debut novel Post Mortem was published by Corvus in 2015.

Follow the Tour:

Praise for Gallowstree Lane

 ‘A stand out brilliant crime novel - sophisticated, authentic and utterly gripping. If you only read one crime novel this year make it this one. Behind the headlines of gangs and knife crime, Kate London's novel is about the real people involved, from the police officers in charge to vulnerable teenagers, all written with complexity, nuance and shot through not only with heart-breaking realism but moments of humour. Only a former police officer could have written a book like this one - authentic, important and pulse-quickeningly good.’

Rosamund Lupton

Praise for Kate London

‘Sensational... A brilliant, high-octane crime novel, ringing with the hard-earned wisdom of a former cop’

Tony Parsons on Death Message

‘A terrific thriller, it pulls off that near-impossible trick of being not just psychologically acute and beautifully written but rivetingly plotted too. Packed with convincing detail and a full cast of excellent characters it is edge of the seat stuff: Prime Suspect rebooted’

Christobel Kent on Death Message

‘An absorbing debut... The author vividly re-creates the everyday experience of uniformed police... The result is a complex novel that offers rare insights into how the police operate’

Sunday Times on Post Mortem

‘Intelligent, atmospheric, captivating - this book draws you in and doesn't let you go. A must read’ Rosamund Lupton on Post Mortem