Staying ahead of the game


Fallen idols
Neil White

Avon, £6.99

Fallen Idols is the debut novel from Neil White, a Crown Prosecution Service lawyer in the north of England by day and crime writer by night.



The action begins with the contract killing of a top Premier League footballer in the heart of Soho which also leaves two estate agents dead. Freelance reporter Jack Garrett and Detective Constable Laura McGanity are quick to the scene and soon find themselves caught up in a complex story which turns out to have its roots in Garrett’s home town in Lancashire, a place he was himself desperate to escape.

As the numbers of dead spiral (I must confess, I had lost track of the body count by the end, but it is pretty high), Garrett and McGanity must work together to solve the puzzle of who is responsible for the killings and why, not just to stop the slaughter, but also to stay ahead of the rest of the press and police pack so Garrett can get his biggest story yet.

This is an action-packed thriller which has no ambitions to be a life-changing work of fiction. Instead, Neil White’s intention is simply to write something that is great to read. The subject matter is very much of the moment. Mr White explores how easily his fictional celebrity footballers can be exposed as fallible and hypocritical, far from the superheroes portrayed by the media. Thus we follow the latest darling of English football as he crumbles at the hands of a blackmailer and see just how desperate those at the top are to stay there.

There are a lot of plot lines to keep hold of, some of which Mr White could probably have saved for his next novel. There are also some unanswered questions at the end of the book (notably how the contract killer at the heart of the action became such a crack shot). Overall, however, for those interested in football, this is a terrific thriller, and even for the non-football mad, this book is a more-than-decent page-turner.