Layer Cake, a metaphor for the many murky layers of the criminal world, is set in modern day London and features smooth-talking and sophisticated drug dealer 'X' whose plan is to quietly bank-roll enough cash to retire young. Operating under the polished veneer of a legitimate businessman, his mantra is to keep a low profile and run a tight operation until it's time to get out. 'X' sees his opportunity to make a final score when crime boss, Jimmy Price, asks him to find the wayward daughter of rival crime boss, Eddy Ryder. He agrees to take the seemingly innocuous gig as his opportunity to get out of the business with the blessing from Jimmy Price... An electric, violoent and twisted rise ensues.
About the Author :
J.J. Connolly was born and brought up in north-east London. His first published story was in the Brit Pulp! anthology. He is the author of acclaimed bestseller Layer Cake, which he adapted into a film script for Sony Pictures and director Matthew Vaughn. His second novel, Viva La Madness, is the sequel to Layer Cake.
Review :
‘This assured debut is far more sophisticated than such expressions of “gangster chic” as Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. Connolly displays the same infectious relish for underworld argot as Elizabethan writers fascinated by rogues’ cant, and his ostensibly artless plotting is as rich in double and triple crosses as a spy thriller’ John Dugdale, The Sunday Times
‘The best crime novel I’ve ever read’ Bruce Reynolds
‘An immensely entertaining read’ Philip MacCann, The Spectator
‘If the brilliantly written and intriguing Layer Cake is anything to go by, his will soon be a name to whet the appetites of readers and critics alike’ Francis Gilbert, The Times
'Funny, hectic, hard-hitting debut novel... Tart, tough and riveted at every juncture by unmistakable authenticity... sheer, unstoppable joy to read from the first page to the last' Philip Oakes, Literary Review
'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
'Connolly's style is fast and funny and just frightening enough to make you sit up all night finishing the book' Independent on Sunday
'One novel in and Connolly has hit the jackpot, jump-started British crime fiction into the present... Like good drug fiction you're given glamour and squalor, a voyeuristic thrill, and the bill' Uncut
