Murphy's law - Review

Murphy's Law is a fictional book by Colin Bateman about an undercover cop Murphy Martin. The author doesn't try to prove Murphy's law that if anything can go wrong it will. In fact its quite the contrary and the only relationship of the title is with the protaganist's name and to catch your attention on bookshelves. There is also a BBC TV series by the same name.

Reading the book is like watching a really good gangster movie like Goodfellas or Departed. It has lot of twists and is unputdownable. It starts out as a regular infiltration movie with the protaganist making himself believable to the gangsters as a singer at a pub. The gangster family headed by Terry Hatcher is in the funeral services business and is also involved in protection, diamond robberies, murders and drug deals. Murphy makes his inflitration convincing initially as singer and later as driver. The other gangster characters Mitch, Johnny, Annie, Noreen have been well sketched.

After Murphy earns the trust of Hatcher, he is involved in their funeral business as driver and as accomplice in robberies. The plot in this book revolves around the sequence of events leading to Hatcher's major drug deal with a japanese gang. After Murphy enters the gang, its a roller coaster ride with lots of spiral twists and turns. And what do you expect when two gangs meet for a drug deal - ofcourse an adrenalin pumping shootout where lots of twists and truths which makes for a satisfying ending.

Murphy's character has lots of interesting shades as singer, funny guy and undercover cop with a sad history. There are some missing holes about his past life, which is expected from TV series to serve as missing links for future seasons. But that doesn't make the first book any less interesting. Overall a very fast paced and interesting read if you liked inflitration movies like Departed.