Review: Gallowstree Lane

 Gallowstree Lane by Kate London  
Genre: Crime Fiction
Page Length: 368 pages
Publication Date: 7 February 2019
Publisher: Corvus
Source: ARC via NetGalley
 
Stars:  4.5 out of 5
 
Link: AMAZON (UK)

 
ABOUT GALLOWSTREE LANE
 
Please don't let me die. Please don't. The final words of teenager Spencer Cardoso as he bleeds out on a London street, his life cut short in a single moment of rage.
 
Detective Inspector Kieran Shaw's not interested in the infantry. Shaw likes the proper criminals, the ones who can plan things.
 
For two years he's been painstakingly building evidence against an organized network, the Eardsley Bluds. Operation Perseus is about to make its arrests.
 
So when a low-level Bluds member is stabbed to death on Gallowstree Lane, Shaw's priority is to protect his operation. An investigation into one of London's tit for tat killings can't be allowed to derail Perseus and let the master criminals go free.
 
But there's a witness to the murder, fifteen-year-old Ryan Kennedy. Already caught up in Perseus and with the Bluds, Ryan's got his own demons and his own ideas about what's important.
 
As loyalties collide and priorities clash, a chain of events is triggered that draws in Shaw's old adversary DI Sarah Collins and threatens everyone with a connection to Gallowstree Lane...

My Review:

I first discovered Kate London through  The Pigeonhole https://thepigeonhole.com/ - a great app which serialises new books. Gallowstree Lane is the third for DS Collins and DC Griffiths of The Metropolitan Series. The interesting thing is that Sarah Collins and Lizzie Griffiths aren't partners, so you get to see more scope of the case and cases.
 
Whilst concentrating on gangs and the destruction of knife crime, it's a wonderfully telling of police procedure powerplay.
 
It was very thought-provoking: How valuable are informants and undercover police to the system, is anyone expendable? Is one murder worth an entire investigation? Crime isn't always black and white, and as you find yourself siding with the lawless and then the law, it's hard not to be caught in the grey murky middle. I read the second half in one sitting and couldn't go to bed until I had finished.
 
Ms London's writing shines as does her authenticity (she used to be a police detective).
 
VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
 
Thank you so much the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a complimentary electronic copy in return for an honest review.