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Rating: 
Summary: Gaspingly cynical, funny, often dark, police procedural
Review: Take is the fifth novel in Bill James's series of cynical mysteries about Colin Harpur, an adulterous but basically decent cop in an unnamed South of England town; and his boss Desmond Ives, a basically not very decent at all but fiercely intelligent and terribly careerist man. All James's novels feature chapters from the POV of the criminals, but in this case rather more than half of the book is from the criminal viewpoint.Ron "Planner" Preston is a small-time crook, or perhaps I should say "medium-time", known for careful and fairly conservative jobs. In this case he has planned a robbery of a payroll delivery truck, hoping to net some 70,000 pounds. But the truck he is targeting suddenly turns up with an extra guard and two extra stops -- meaning the job should net at least three times the "take". But Preston is cautious -- he doesn't know if the extra money is worth the extra risk. He's forced to recruit an unstable additional team member, and things are further complicated when his daughter gets involved with one of his recruits. Complicated personal reasons to do with his daughter, his wife, his mistress, a new girl he'd like to seduce, his advancing age, all push him to take risks he ordinarily wouldn't. Meanwhile Harpur and Ives are unaware of Preston's plans. Harpur's daughters, however, are in the same community theatre production as Preston's wife. And Ives's wife is pregnant -- but she is still carrying on an affair with a criminal snitch who might be linked to Preston. One of Preston's informants is a bent cop. And Harpur's mistress's husband is another cop, one of the top marksmen in the force, a man who will be part of any team involved in an armed ambush if one becomes necessary. The two teams slowly converge, basically unaware of what's really going on -- a comedy of errors and miscalculations on both sides leading to a savagely ironic conclusion. As ever with James, a cynically funny book, with plenty of gaspingly nasty lines, with a criminal lead character who somehow gains a bit of our sympathy even as we see that he is really a bad person. I missed to some extent some of Harpur and Iles' interplay -- it's still here in this book but reduced. Nonetheless, another fine dark crime novel.
Rating: 
Summary: "Who the justice,who the thief"(King Lear)
Review: This is an entry in the UK police procedural series about"Harpur"and "Iles"but for much of the time the police take a back seat in the story,which revolves around a payroll robbery.The chief architect of the robbery is "Planner Preston" a cautious,meticulous thief who lives quietly with wife and daughter and whose existence is outwardly humdrum and normal.Other gang members are his usual sidekick the motherly "Mansell"and two out of towners recruited for the deal .They are younger men and more prone to violence specially the tattooed "Darren"
Preston is getting inside information from the firm marked for robbery and from the police in the form of bent copper"Leckie"
We witness the build up of tension within the gang and intercut from there to the no less tangled web of relationships within the police.
Harpur is having an affair with the wife of a colleague,which since that person is a trained marksman and fond of using a gun ,is not a deperately good idea.Iles,his superior is troubled by his wife's affair with another man and agonising over the paternity of the child she is expecting We are given background information on the character's lives with details of amateur dramatic productions ,debilitating illness etc all adding to the depth of characterization.There is a great deal on the generation gap among the criminal elements The robbery and its planning gives the book its main theme although there is a murder thrown in for good measure The police do not emerge from the book with any credit.At least two of them are psychotic,and another an adulterer,and the organization is shown as being more adept at cover up than integrity .One almost but not quite ends up rooting for the bad guys It is a book I always felt while reading,had been cocstructed and assembled rather than written.Well put together and deeply cynical it made me want to delve further into the series but not as a priority
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