Jon Morgan is a retired police Superintendent and francophile who, it is said, has consequently seen almost everything awful that people can do to each other. He relishes quality writing in all genres but advises particularly on police procedure for authors including John Harvey and Jon McGregor. Haunts bookshops both new and secondhand and stands with Erasmus: “When I have a little money, I buy books; and if I have any left, I may buy food and clothes.”
This book is a fictionalised account of the events leading up to, and following the murder in a South London pub car park, of the private detective Daniel Morgan in 1987.
It is been in the news on and off, for the last several decades, with investigation and re-investigation of both the murder and alleged police corruption and collusion with criminal elements.
It does not clearly seek to identify the murderer(s) but rather dances around the issue and the majority of the book is actually concerned with wider police corruption, a look back at the social milieu before during and after the killing. Some names have been changed to protect the innocent / guilty according to your perspective.
Much is made of the tabloid excesses of the period, with corruption providing the ‘heads-up’ for tabloid stories, also fed by the private detective agency for which Morgan worked. Murdoch is always referred to as ‘The Australian.’ Payments for stories is common and headlines are frequently quoted. One bright spot was the recounting of the exposés of hypocritical right wing figures such as David Mellor, Squidgy-gate was fun too!
It is not badly written per se and the narrative fairly rattles along due to most of it being in the present tense – this can become very irritating. It is of interest to me, because it is contemporaneous with my own police service and several of the events it recounts (less than accurately) I was present at – Wapping and the Poll tax riots to name but two. My recollections are rather different to those in the book.
It sweeps up the brutal and racist murder of Stephen Lawrence and the flawed enquiries but does not recognise Paul Condon’s brave acknowledgement of institutional racism within the MPS. The Marchioness disaster makes an appearance. All background noise, but only tangentially related to the title and apparent central thesis of the book.
What damages a valiant attempt to look at the bigger picture, both in societal, historical and policing terms are the many typos and gross inaccuracies: A police officer is referred to as Chief Superintendent in one line and C/Inspector in another. Peter Imbert, the MPS Commissioner is called ‘Commander.’ Demonstrators carry placards on balsa wood poles – No they do not! I know I have been smacked over the head several times by them – I still have the scars. There are many more examples.
The book contains direct lifts from racist literature of the period and sexist and misogynistic behaviour which seem rather lurid, gratuitous and excessive and could have been dealt with more subtly and, I think, more powerfully.
The book seems to peter out somewhat with a senior office retiring with a bad back, and two others retiring, one of who finds God (rather late) and the other going in for adoption. The reason for this is that there appears to be a sequel / sequels in the pipeline. We are told that this is the first in ‘The Dark Thames’ trilogy.
