LAST year, Belfast author Neil Walker's crime debut Drug Gang drew rave reviews from readers who enjoyed the Amazon ebook best-seller's highly readable combination of lean prose, tight plotting and wince-inducing ultra-violent mayhem.
That daringly near-the-knuckle book found Walker's Belfast-born morally malleable anti-hero John Kennedy getting sucked into the murky underworld of Manchester's lucrative drug scene: now, the appropriately titled follow-up Drug Gang Vengeance finds Kennedy embroiled in the fall-out from his lethal entanglement with ruthless narcotics ring The Brotherhood.
Walker's latest page-turner traces Kennedy and a small band of allies from Sydney to Belfast and back to Manchester as the handy-in-a-fight maverick gears up for a final, literally blood and guts soaked take-down of his former comrades turned arch enemies.
As they say in the movies, 'this time it's personal' – and the resulting bullet-riddled bodycount reflects Kennedy's determination to get even with his former crew or die trying.
The twists, turns and bone-crunching confrontations just keep coming as Walker seeds his gritty, foul-mouthed action with the kind of authentic detail that strongly suggests a worryingly extensive knowledge of obscure martial arts and stylishly violent cinema.
Indeed, John Woo and Bruce Lee are both explicitly referenced within Drug Gang Vengeance, with Kennedy and co indulging in plenty of twin 45s-toting gunplay and skull-cracking nunchaku beatings as they make their win or bust stand against The Brotherhood.
With a third book already on the way, the Drug Gang series is clearly habit-forming for crime readers with strong stomachs and an appetite for hard-boiled, fast-paced violent fantasy.
Available now via Amazon.co.uk
