Bill Rogers

Synopsis

When Premiership star Sunday Okowu-Bello is found dead, in chilling circumstances, DCI Tom Caton knows this case is going to be anything but straightforward. And with three security guards missing the last thing he needs is the newly appointed Commissioner of Police and Crime piling on the pressure.
At first sight, the victim’s predilection for easy sex and gambling provides both motive, and suspects. As Caton digs deeper he finds himself drawn into a bewildering nexus of gambling cartels, security firms, the victim’s Nigerian sponsors, Far Right extremists, and Far East and Russian syndicates jostling for ownership of the club.
When a second body is discovered Caton knows that the killing has only just begun. The National Crime Agency is waiting in the wings, and the clock is ticking...

Reviews

Holt heard the ringtone, pushed back his chair and stood up. There were other apartments more conveniently placed along the canal, closer to the city centre, or down by the Castlefield Arena, but each morning this view from the balcony lifted his spirits. Sunset was for lovers. To be savoured from the pavement cafes on Deansgate, in the new financial centre in Spinningfields, or from the Cloud Bar in the Hilton Hotel. It was how you started the day that mattered.
He went inside and picked up.
‘Hello?’
‘You are still interested in the Titans?’
The voice was Eastern European, possibly Russian, like all the other calls. He still found it impossible to place.
‘I’m interested.’
‘Get down there now. Take something warm.’
There was a click. Call over.
Not even a Do svidaniya.
The streets were quiet. The first tram of the day gliding silently past redbrick warehouse hotels, a motorised street sweeper sucking up detritus from the night before. He lowered the windscreen visor against the blinding glare of the early morning sun. According to Manchester Radio it was not going to last.
Winter pansies spoke of spring in the planters beneath the towering shard of the Beetham Tower. He headed southwest past the Museum of Science and Industry until he hit the motorway. As he took the slip road by Barton Bridge an ominous bank of clouds threatened to blot out the sun.
Salford Titans, plucked from the Championship by foreign buyers, relocated to the banks of the Manchester Ship Canal, manager and players cherry picked with Chinese money. Two years, and the brand new Quanxi stadium later, they were champions of the Premiership, and through the qualifying stages of the Champions League. This region already had eight clubs in the Premiership, more than any other. It didn’t need another one. You only had to ask the fans at Old Trafford or the Etihad stadium. Or their nearest neighbours, the Salford Reds Rugby League side, with their own Salford City Stadium less than half a mile away.
There were rumours of corruption and dirty money. The mysterious phone calls he’d been getting had all but confirmed it. It was one reason why Holt had relinquished, mid career, his job as North West crime reporter for the News of The World. The other, was a little matter of redundancy

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Details
ISBN 9780956422071
Publisher Accent UK / Engine Comics (Magazine)
Genre Fiction
Set in Greater Manchester
Extent 368pp

Other Titles by Bill Rogers

• The Cleansing
• The Head Case
• The Tiger's Cave
• A Fatal Intervention
• Bluebell Hollow
• Backwash