Layer Cake

One novel in and Connolly has hit the jackpot, jump-started British crime fiction into the present... Like good drug fiction you're given glamour and squalor, a voyeuristic thrill, and the bill. * Uncut * Connolly's style is fast and funny and just frightening enough to make you sit up all night finishing the book. * Independent on Sunday * Layer Cake is a storming piece of work... the novel has a grasp of street argot unparalleled since Kinky Friedman first sashayed out of his from door and nailed a checker straight out of the bat -- D. J. Taylor

Layer Cake, a metaphor for the many murky layers of the criminal world, is set in modern day London and features smooth-talking and sophisticated drug dealer 'X' whose plan is to quietly bank-roll enough cash to retire young (early). Operating under the polished veneer of a legitimate businessman, his mantra is to keep a low profile and run a tight operation until it's time to get out. 'X' sees his opportunity to make a final score when crime boss, Jimmy Price, asks him to find the wayward daughter of rival crime boss, Eddy Ryder. He agrees to take the seemingly innocuous gig as his opportunity to get out of the business with the blessing from Jimmy Price. From the glitz of the London club scene to the underbelly of its criminal world, a dark, twisted thriller ensues.