A White Arrest

By Ken Bruen

A pair of rough cops hunts for a career-making arrest in this first novel of the “hip, violent and funny” trilogy set in Southeast London (Publishers Weekly).
 
After four decades at the precinct, and close to forcible retirement, all London’s Chief Inspector Roberts has to show for it is a hateful daughter, a faithless wife, and a dwindling bank account. With his partner, the bullying Irish Detective Sergeant Brant, Roberts is still looking for every cop’s badge of honor: the White Arrest—that career-changing bust that could make them chat show heroes. Or least wipe their dirty slates clean. And they have a lot to work with right now . . .
 
A racist Death Wish–inspired street gang is lynching drug dealers from Brixton lampposts. And in the quiet suburb of Balham, a bat-wielding lunatic has been bashing in the skulls of a schoolboys’ cricket team. With any luck Roberts and Brant will make the front page—by any means necessary.
 
With two unforgettable—and arguably irredeemable—tough London cops, award-winning author Ken Bruen again proves he’s “become the crime novelist to read” (George Pelecanos).

• Language: English
• Publisher: MysteriousPress.com Open Road
• Release date: Dec 18, 2012
• ISBN: 9781453289013

Ken Bruen

Ken Bruen is one of the most prominent Irish crime writers of the last two decades. He received a doctorate in metaphysics, taught English in South Africa, and then became a crime novelist. He is the recipient of two Barry Awards, two Shamus Awards and has twice been a finalist for the Edgar Award. He lives in Galway, Ireland.

Book preview

‘a blue collar soul’

ROBERTS PICKED UP THE phone, answered: ‘Chief Inspector.’ He never tired of the title.

‘John? John, is that you?’

‘Yes, dear.’

‘I must say you sound terribly formal, quite the man of importance.’

He tried to hold his temper, stared at the receiver, took a deep breath and asked: ‘Was there something?’

‘The dry-cleaning, can you pick it up?’

‘Pick it up yourself!’

And he put the phone down, lifted it up again and punched a digit.

‘Yes, sir?’

‘I’ve just had a call from my wife.’

‘Oh sorry sir, she said it was urgent.’

‘Never put her through. Was I vague in my last request?’

‘Vague, sir?’

‘Did I lack some air of command? Did I perhaps leave a loophole of doubt that said, Sometimes it’s OK to put the bitch through?’

‘No, sir – sorry sir. Won’t happen again.’

‘Let’s not make too much of it. If it happens again, you’ll be bundling homeys on Railton Road for years to come. Now piss off.’

He moved from behind his desk and contemplated his reflection in a half mirror. A photo of former England cricket captain Mike Atherton in one corner with the caption:

IT’S NOT CRICKET

Roberts was sixty-two and at full stance he looked imposing. Recently he found it more difficult to maintain. A sag whispered at his shoulders. It whispered ‘old’.

His body was muscular but it took work. More than he wanted to give. A full head of hair was steel grey and he felt the lure of the Grecian alternative – but not yet. Brown eyes that were never gentle and a Roman nose. Daily he said, ‘I hate that fuckin’ nose.’ A headbutt from a drunk had pushed it off-centre to give the effect of a botched nose job. According to his wife, his mouth was unremarkable till he spoke, then it was ugly. He got perverse joy from that.

Now he hit the intercom, barked: ‘Get me Falls.’

‘Ahm...

‘Are you deaf?’

‘Sorry, sir. I’m not sure where she’s at.’

‘Where she’s at! What is this? A bloody commune? You’re a policeman, go and find her. Go and find her now and don’t ever let me hear that hippy shit again.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Five minutes later a knock and Falls entered, straightening her tunic, crumbs floating to the floor. They both watched the descent. He said:

‘Picking from a rich man’s platter perhaps?’

She smiled. ‘Hardly, sir.’

‘I have a job for you.’

‘Yes, sir?’

He rummaged through his desk, produced a few pink tickets, flipped them towards her.

She said, ‘Dry-cleaning tickets?’

‘Well identified; collect them on your lunch hour, eh?’

She let them lie, said: ‘Hardly, sir – I mean, it’s not in my brief to be valet or something.’

He gave her a look of pure indignation.

‘Jeez, you don’t think I’ll collect then, do you? How would that look? Man of my rank poncing about a dry-cleaners?’

‘With all due respect, sir, I –’

He cut her off.

‘If you want to stay on my good side, love, don’t bugger me about.’

She considered standing on her dignity, making a gesture for the sisterhood, telling him, with respect, to shove it, then thought, yeah sure.

And picked up the tickets, said: ‘I’ll need paying.’

‘Don’t we all, love – where’s Brant?’

Later: Roberts had just parked his car and was starting to walk when a man stepped out of the shadows. A big man. He bruised out of his track suit and all of it muscle.

He said: ‘I’m going to need your money, mate, and probably your watch if it’s not a piece of shit.’

Roberts, feeling so tired, said: ‘Would it help your decision to know I’m a copper?’

‘A bit, but not enough. I’ve been asking people for money all day, asking nice and they treated me like dirt. So, now it’s no more Mr Nice Guy. Hand it over, pal.’

‘Okay, as you can see, I’m no spring chicken, and fit? I’m fit for nowt, but I’ve a real mean streak. No doubt you’ll hurt me a lot but I promise you, I’ll hurt you fucking back.’

The man considered, stepped forward, then spat: ‘Ah bollocks, forget it. All right.’

‘Forget. No. I don’t think so. Get off my manor, pal, you’re too big to miss.’

After Roberts moved away, the man considered putting a brick through his windshield, or slash the tyres or some fuck. But that bastard would come after him. Oh yes, a relentless cold fuck. Best leave well enough alone.

He said: ‘You were lucky, mate.’

Who exactly he meant was unclear.

When Roberts got back home, he had to lean against the door. His legs turned to water and tiny tremors hit him. A voice asked: ‘Not having a turn are you, Dad?’

Sarah, his fifteen-year-old daughter, supposedly at boarding school, a very expensive one, in the coronary area. It didn’t so much drain his resources as blast a hole through them – wide and unstoppable. He tried for composure.

‘Whatcha doing home, not half term already?’

‘No. I got suspended.’

‘What? What on earth for? Got to get me a drink.’

He poured a sensible measure of Glenlivet, then added to it, took a heavy slug and glanced at his daughter. She was in that eternal moment of preciousness between girl and woman. She loved and loathed her dad in equal measure. He looked closer, said:

‘Good grief, are those hooks in your lips?’

‘It’s fashion, Dad.’

‘Bloody painful, I’d say. Is that why you’re home?’

‘Course not. Mum says not to tell you, I didn’t do nuffink.’

Roberts sighed: an ever-constant cloud of financial ruin hung over his head, just to teach her how to pronounce ‘nothing’. And she said it as if she’d submerged south of the river and never surfaced.

He picked up the phone while Sarah signalled ‘later’ and headed upstairs.

‘This is DI Roberts. Yeah, I’m home and a guy tried to mug me on my own doorstep. What? What is this? Did I apprehend him? Get me DS Brant and get a car over here to pick up this guy. He’s a huge white fella in a dirty green tracksuit. Let Brant deal with him. My address? You better be bloody joking, son.’ And he slammed the phone down.

As an earthquake of music began to throb from the roof, he muttered: ‘Right.’

Racing up the stairs, two at a time, like a demented thing: ‘Sarah! Sarah! What is that awful racket?’

‘It’s Encore Une Fois, Dad.’

‘Whatever it is, turn it down. Now!’

Sarah lay on her bed. Wondered, could she risk a toke? Better not, leastways till Mum got home.

‘He who hits first gets promoted’

(Detective Sergeant Brant)

BRANT LEANT OVER THE suspect, asked: ‘Have you ever had a puck in the throat?’ The suspect, a young white male, didn’t know the answer, but he knew the very question boded ill.

Brant put his hand to his forehead said: ‘Oh gosh, how unthinking of me. You probably don’t know what a puck is. It’s my Irish background, those words just hop in any old place. Let me enlighten you.’

The police constable standing by the door of the interview room shifted nervously. Brant knew and ignored him, said: ‘A puck is –’ and lashed out with his closed fist to the man’s Adam’s apple. He went over backwards in his chair, clutching his throat. No sound other than the chair hitting.

Brant said: ‘That’s what it is. A demonstration is worth a hundred words, so my old mum always said – bless her.’

The man writhed on the floor as he fought to catch his breath. The constable made a move forward, said, ‘Really, sir, I –’

‘Shut the fuck up.’ Brant righted the chair, said: ‘Take your time son, no hurry, no hurry at all. A few more pucks you’ll forget about time completely. But time out, let’s have a nice cup o’ tea, eh? Whatcha say to a brewski me oul’ china?’ Brant sat in the chair, took out a crumpled cigarette and lit it, said in a strangled voice: ‘Oh Jesus, these boys catch you in the throat – know what I mean?’ He took another lethal pull then asked: ‘Do you want to tell me why you raped the girl before the tea, or wait till after?’ Before, the man said.

Brant was like a pit-bull. You saw him and the word ‘pugnacious’ leapt to mind. It fitted. His hair was in galloping recession and what remained was cut to the skull. Dark eyes over a nose that had been broken at least twice. A full, sensual mouth that hinted at gentility if not gentleness. Neither applied. He was 5’ 8" and powerfully built. Not from the gym but rather from a smouldering rage. Over a drink he’d admit: ‘I was born angry and got worse.’

He’d achieved the rank of detective sergeant through sheer bloody-mindedness. It seemed unlikely he’d progress in the Metropolitan Police. It was anxious to shed its bully-boy image.

Special Branch had wooed him but he’d told them in a memorable memo to ‘Get fucked’. It made the Branch love him all the more. He was their kind of rough.

Outside the interview room the constable asked: ‘If I might have a word, sir.’

‘Make it snappy, boyo.’

‘I feel I must protest.’

Brant shot his hand out, grabbing the man’s testicles, growled: ‘Feel that! Get yourself a set of brass ones boyo, or you’ll be patrolling the Peckham Estates.’

Falls approached, said: ‘Ah. the hands-on approach.’

‘Whatcha want, Falls?’

‘Mr Roberts wants you.’

He released the constable, said: ‘Don’t ever interrupt my interrogation again. Got that, laddie?’

The C A club had no connection to the clothing shop and they certainly didn’t advertise. It stood for Certain Age, as in ‘women of a’. The women were of the age where they were certain what they wanted. And what they wanted was sex. No frills.

No hassle.

No complications.

Roberts’ wife was forty-six. According to the new Hollywood chick-flicks, a woman of forty-six had more hope of being killed by a psychopath than finding a new partner.

Her friend Penelope had shared this gem with her and was now saying: ‘Fiona, don’t you ever just want to get laid

Reviews for A White Arrest

[martinhughharvey_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A really quick read and a short book so great if that's what you're looking for.When I started this book I frankly found it hard to take. Everybody, and I mean everybody, in the book was revolting. I guess I got used to it as I persevered and made it to the end. Verdict - decent enough.

[shob7dw · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Picked this up at Book Xcess for RM4.90 on impulse and i gotta admit its one of the best impulse buys i've made. Ken Bruen's an Irish writer, his writing's crisp and no-holds-barred, nary a single line is wasted. (Each chapter is only 2 pages or more!) A quick read but very gritty and satisfying. Comparable to Block & Hammett. This is the first in a series of Brant & Roberts police stories. Looking forward to more.

[arubabookwoman · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

"He who laughs last usually didn't get the joke."This is Book 1 of the White Trilogy, which constitute the first 3 books of the Brant series. So this is where it all began.First line: "R & B they were called. If Chief Inspector Roberts was like the rhythm, then Brant was the darkest Blues."In this entry the precinct must deal with two crime sprees. One group is killing drug dealers and hanging them up on lampposts. Another guy is murdering one by one the members of the national cricket team. Setting the tone for subsequent entries, the story is told in rapid short vignettes, featuring ever-changing characters and events.And all the cops are seeking the mythical "white arrest"--the bust that turns a cop into a hero, a career changing event, and one so awesome that it wipes out all previous screwups.3 stars

[samsattler · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Ken Bruen novels are inhabited by a few (very few) good cops, a whole bunch of “bent” ones, and a few brutal criminals who happen to wear police badges while committing their crimes. His is a violent world in which criminals and cops compete on an even playing field – rules and rights, be damned. A White Arrest, the first book in Bruen’s White Trilogy, is a prime example of that world. London’s Chief Inspector Roberts and Detective Sergeant Brant do not do things by the book. On the good cop/brutal cop spectrum, they are much closer to being characterized as criminal cops than as good cops. But, despite their wild-man tactics, they are not particularly effective at solving crimes. Consequently, their jobs are often on the line. They badly need a “white arrest,” - the high profile arrest of a criminal whose crimes have caught the imaginations of the public – if they are ever to have any real job security.Brant, the book’s main character, abuses his police power so badly that he has long forgotten how to make a legal arrest. He physically abuses suspects, takes bribes when he can get them (and steals cash laying around crime scenes when he hopes no one is looking), runs a liquor store tab he has no intention of ever paying, and is not above stiffing the pizza delivery guy on occasion. But all that makes him the perfect cop to stop the murderers terrorizing two very different segments of the London population.A White Arrest is Ken Bruen at his wildest – and that is really saying something. Reading this one is like reading under a bright strobe light as Bruen presents one short scene after another in such rapid succession that it is often difficult to determine which character is speaking – or, for that matter, even involved in the segment. But, frustrating as this approach often is, it works well to set the tone of the dual investigations that take on lives all their own.Roberts and Brant, like them or not, are a forced to be reckoned with in their patch of southeast London. Criminals beware. Rated at: 3.5