Nicholas Rhea comments:
"I have always been intrigued by the way criminals refuse to co-operate with the police and I wondered how they might react if one of their own went missing in mysterious circumstances. How does one persuade someone brought up in a criminal fraternity that the police can be on their side? This Pemberton book is such a story ..."
Dead Ends
The disappearance of a smart young criminal, Darren Mallory, is cause for some concern but his family, all seasoned villains, refuse to cooperate with the police.
Despite the relatives' unwillingness to help with his investigation, Detective Superintendent Mark Pemberton pushes ahead and launches an official search for the missing man.
But it's as if Mallory has vanished off the face of the earth. The meagre information they do manage to find suggests his abduction was orchestrated by a team of fake police officers, and the faint trail leads Pemberton on into the murky world of drugs, and one particular drug baron. But when all leads to that individual mysteriously come to an end, Pemberton really starts to lose his bearings on the case.
So is the drugs baron just another red herring, concocted to throw him further off the scent?
Dead Ends was originally published in November 2003.
Second hand copies are available on eBay and AbeBooks.