The City Trap — John Dalton

A masterly noir debut that resonates with the tense atmosphere of corruption and betrayal of the deadly urban underworld

A murdered prostitute: Des McGinlay's first big case should be easy to resolve. But he's desperately struggling to pull his own life together even as he picks through the wreckage of others, and the case is not as simple as it first appears. There's Vin, who loved the executed woman, and who is now being set up as the fall guy for the murder; Bertha, the grieving mother, who wants Des for a lucrative future; and as a photographer, a dope head, and a right-wing politician are sucked into the vortex, the lowlife sharks are circling. Bright-hearted Pearl offers Des a glimmer of hard-won redemption, but at street and canal level, down in the pubs and blues parties of the slums, no one is playing by the rules.