Product Description

In different parts of London, three recruits prepare for their first day at the Metropolitan Police's training centre at Hendon. All three had succeeded in getting into the police in spite of weaknesses. But on their first day, the assistant commissioner announces that he wants them to join a team of undercover detectives. Their brief? To become criminals; to work their way up through whatever criminal organisations they can get access to, and to collate evidence against the criminals they come across. Their target? One of the world's biggest drug dealers, Den Donovan, alias 'Tango One' - number one on HM Customs and Excise's List of most wanted criminals.



Three years later all the recruits are getting close to their target. Too close, perhaps, to remember the rules . . .

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #20579 in Books
• Published on: 2002-08-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 512 pages

Sunday Express on THE BOMBMAKER
'As high-tech and as world-class as the thriller genre gets'

Review
'Stephen Leather should be nestling in your bookshelves alongside Frederick Forsyth and Jack Higgins . . . Exciting stuff with plenty of heart-palpitating action . . . Leather is an intelligent thriller writer' (Daily Mail on THE TUNNEL RATS )

'As high-tech and as world-class as the thriller genre gets' (Sunday Express on THE BOMBMAKER )

'A gripping story sped along by admirable, uncluttered prose' (Daily Telegraph on THE CHINAMAN )

'Leather, a former journalist, can dispense high-adrenaline plotting but never at the expense of remembering that his characters are humans rather than Action Dolls' (Sunday Express )

'A top-notch thriller which whips the reader along at breakneck speed' (Yorkshire Post on THE LONG SHOT )

Daily Telegraph on THE CHINAMAN
'A gripping story sped along by admirable, uncluttered prose'

Customer Reviews

Action all the way!!
This is by far the best book yet from Stephen Leather, and I have read them all!!
This book races along from the very first page with very little 'descriptive' padding.
It is about three new police recruits in London who find that their first day at the Hendon training centre is cancelled and they are 'recruited' as undercover police officers with a long term aim of capturing the biggest drug baron - Den Donovan.
I found all of the characters believable and interesting. In fact, this is the best book I've read for ages and I read a lot of books!

It's all a Game, yeah?
Two of my favorite thriller writers are the English authors Gerald Seymour and Stephen Leather. The former impels his heroes, otherwise rather average British citizens, into harm's way in ideological conflicts at the world's grotty margins, and forces them to survive while winning victories that are, at best, Pyrrhic in nature. In Seymour's world, there is no absolute right or wrong, only gray areas, and his characters, like the reader, are carried along by currents more powerful than the individual. In contrast, Leather defines characters that drive the plot and reveal both their good and bad natures in the process. In Leather's thrillers - at least the few I've read to date - the protagonist straddles the line between law-abiding and not, perhaps demonstrating what each of us is capable of if the right pressure is exerted.

Here, TANGO ONE, i.e. the individual "most wanted" by Her majesty's Customs and Excise, is international drug dealer and London resident, Den Donovan. In the book's first 80 pages, which set up the remaining 400, Donovan comes across as a right bloody SOB - capable of orchestrating and filming the torture execution of an undercover agent, and sending the video to C&E as a warning taunt. This event causes Customs and MI6 to recruit as new deep cover agents three young applicants to London's Metropolitan Police - Jamie, Tina and Warren, all of whom have a history of minor criminality that will likely hinder their careers as uniformed officers, but will make them believable members of the underworld as they try to get close to Den and his illegal enterprise. The narrative then jumps ahead three years to when Donovan's 9-year old son, Robbie, catches his mother, Vicky, in bed with Den's accountant, Sharkey. The adulterous pair flee the country to escape Den's wrath, while Robbie moves in with Den's sister and her husband. Donovan now must return to England from overseas, where he's been busy setting up his next big drug deal with the Colombians, to sort out his family problems. On his return, Den discovers that Sharkey also absconded with $60 million of his money - some of which was to be used to pay the Colombians, who don't take kindly to being stiffed. As Den struggles to solve his personal, business, and financial difficulties, he eventually comes into contact with the trio of undercover agents, who surface about halfway through the book.

As TANGO ONE begins, the reader might be forgiven for believing that the plot's protagonists will be Jamie, Tina, and Warren. Not so. The novel's "hero", or at least the character the reader will likely end up cheering on, is Den himself, especially as the trio's MI6 controller ultimately reveals an agenda of his own that would not amuse Her Majesty. Furthermore, as Donovan explains the Game between drug importers and drug enforcement, the former have the opportunity for riches while the latter have the opportunity to advance their careers, and the mass of citizenry in the middle only suffers no matter who wins. So, while Donovan would perhaps not be someone you'd want marrying your daughter, he reveals a human and sometimes quasi-honorable side that goes a long way to ameliorating one's first impression, at least to the point that you might be willing to have a pint with the man.

The essence of a Stephen Leather hero is his (or her) capacity for both good and evil. And though a Leather plot invariably has a nice and tidy ending far different from the beguilingly ambiguous conclusion of a Seymour thriller, it's the chameleon-like quality of Stephen's protagonists that places all of his books on my Wish List.

You've been Tango'd
Tango One is the first Stephen Leather book I have read, I couldn't put it down.

The story is based around Den Donovan, a drugs baron who specialises in bringing together all the necessary parties to create big drugs deals. He works from the Carribean in order to stay clear of the British authorities who have designated him 'Tango One' - Britain's most wanted man.

When Den Donovan's wife run's off with his accountant and his $60,000,000 he is left high and dry with no money to pay the ruthless Columbians for their lastest shipment of drugs.

Forced to return to the UK to look after his young son, Donovan is soon under surveilance by Customs, Police, MI5 etc whilst he skillfully sets up further deals with the Yardies, crooked art dealers, lap dancers, Scottish and Liverpool drugs lords and some phsycopathic Columbians.

Meanwhile three deep undercover cops are getting closer to his inner circle keeping an eye on Donovan as he goes about his business leaving many dead bodies in his wake.

A damn good read!