The Sins Of Their Fathers

Gilda O'Neill is a woman of multiple abilities, and her various skills as novelist, social commentator and historian dovetail together very satisfyingly to produce a vivid, flint-edged picture of London's East End in the 1960s which leaps off the page with its sardonic dialogue and sharply drawn characters. The O'Donnell family are living the life of Reilly. Their brief includes prostitution, protection rackets and gambling, and their very name inspires respect and fear. But Harold Kessler, long-time nemesis of Gabriel O'Donnell, head of the clan, has decided to bring his family back to the East End, and a bloody confrontation is inevitable. The plotting here is quite as adroit as one could wish, and Gabriel O'Donnell is one of the most powerfully drawn protagonists in the British crime genre for quite some time. But it's the realization of some less-than-admirable characters that is O'Neill's trump card - she allows readers to make their own judgements on the characters and resists any kind of moralising authorial voice. This refusal to judge is initially disconcerting, but treating readers as intelligent people is rarely a bad move, and in the long run her resistance to conventional novelistic ploys pays rich dividends. You won't like many of the people you encounter in this book, but you'll find it very difficult to put it down. (Kirkus UK)