Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #338690 in Books
• Published on: 2000-04-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

Review
"'Layer Cake is a storming piece of work... the novel has a grasp of street argot unparalleled since Kinky Friedman first sashayed out of his from door and nailed a checker straight out of the bat' - D. J. Taylor"

Uncut
‘Mission accomplished. One novel in and Connolly has hit the jackpot and jump started British crime fiction into the present'

Bizarre
‘J.J Connolly has created the caper of the year…it’s fantastic’

Customer Reviews

The best British crime novel I've ever read
I first came across Connolly through a short story of his I quite liked in the Britpulp! anthology. With his fist full novel he delivers on that early promise with the best British crime novel I've ever read. While I often enjoy traditional procedurals like John Harvey's Charlie Resnik series, have been known to enjoy Agatha Christie in my younger days, Jake Arnott's The Long Firm and He Kills Coppers, and quite like a lot of the pulpy/noirish stuff put out by The Do Not Press these days-this leaves them all in the dust. The book follows an unnamed narrator over two weeks in 1997 as he plots to end his criminal days and retire on his thirtieth birthday-of course there's just that one last job to take care of...

The thing you notice right away is the language. Nonstop patter, stories, and more slang than you can shake a stick at. The rhythms of the language, both descriptive and dialogue, is perfect and unique. The best comparison I can make is with some of Irvine Welsh's stuff-it's English, but unlike any English you or I speak. And like Welsh's stuff, it can be hard to follow for those not up on the argot (especially cockney rhyming slang), so be warned. But if you like the language, you fall in love with the characters. Finally, some honest to god smart criminals who understand that being low-key is the smoothest path to riches. There must be at least fifty characters in the novel and Connolly gives each one a distinctive voice, even if they're only around for a page.

Once you've absorbed the amazing language and characterization, you'll be swept away by the authenticity. The entire book takes place in the criminal underworlds of London and Liverpool, with details on international drug trafficking, porn shops, killings, and on and on. The book immerses the reader in that world more so than any crime novel I've come across, and you have to wonder what Connolly's been up to in his life to be able to conjure such a setting from his head. It's not a world for the faint of heart, but one that's compelling to read about-more like The Long Good Friday than Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. Finally, there's the expert plotting. Built on that classic premise of a gangster looking to get out of the game, Connolly's plot twists and turns with complications that keep boxing in the narrator until the inevitable climax. From start to finish, it's the best novel about British organized crime around.

Right on the money
Connolly clearly has an acute awareness of what happens in these circles and isn't just some opinionated media prick who thinks it would be 'cool' to write a book about the underworld we all see but don't understand.

This book is not only a very good tale that you'll probably read in one or two sittings, gripped all along as he takes you through the seedy world of non straight-goers, but it is also a fascinating insight into what is happening all around us. If you live in London, you'll find it especially intrigueing and will have no doubt drunk or eaten in the places referred to.

Great book that deserves a higher profile than its had. I hear Madonna's fella is making a film of it. Let's hope he does it justice.

Why haven't you written another book?
The Laya Cake is a classic modern British thriller, this book captures Londons underworld with perfect vision and clarity, like your first line of an illegal substance. Guy Ritchie is going to make a film of this fantastic book, let's hope his missus isn't in it, and he doesn't nause the whole thing up! The charecters are people we know or have read about before, they jump off the page and scare the s*** out of the reader, a bar room brawl of a novel..Perfect.