Saturday's Child Ray Banks Polygon £8.99 pbk ISBN 1904598781 April 2006 Martyn Waites

Cal Innes, fresh out of prison, living in Manchester and describing himself as a private investigator, is asked by local gang lord Morris Tiernan to track down an employee from one of his casinos who’s ran off with a huge chunk of cash. But Tiernan’s psychotic son, Mo, is also on the trail. Because there’s something far more important than money been taken, something that he’s prepared to kill to get back.

In this, his first novel to be published in the UK, Ray Banks takes the Brit noir thriller format and gives it a damn good and much deserved kicking. The narrative is split between Innes and Mo, the psychotic ageing pillhead on his trail. It’s a testament to Banks’ skill that he manages to pull off not only the hugely difficult trick of two first person narrators both speaking in identifiable but wildly differing voices, but also making such an unlikeable character as Mo so appealing. However it’s Innes who commands the most attention. A bruised soul hiding behind the fantasy of being a private eye, preferring to get involved in other people’s damaged lives rather than attempt to repair his own, by the end he has been forced to confront his own heart of darkness. Excellently done, but in what I thought was a stroke of brilliance, characters Innes meets along the way openly treat his ‘occupation’ with sarcasm at best, derision at worst. In acknowledging that the British-based hardboiled PI is an essentially unworkable concept, Banks has created the first truly credible one.

If you’re looking for a polite, middle class mystery perhaps about professional people committing adultery in lavish surroundings or even something with cats or cooking, look elsewhere. If you want your worst fears about Blair’s Britain confirmed, and be hugely entertained in the process, this is for you. It’s bleak, dark and brutal, the urban landscape a Chavland theme park writ large and nasty where the rides and highs come from drugs, nicked motors and unlawful sex and when you stop you stop for good.

Ken Bruen reckons Ray Banks is stepping up to the majors with this one. You’ll hear no argument from me.