The hotly anticipated sequel to The Pictures. Guy Bolton’s unforgettable 1930s Hollywood fixer Jonathan Craine is thrust into the dark underbelly of the LA mafia, only to discover more secrets and lies

June 1947

Eight years have passed since the events of The Pictures.

Jonathan Craine has left his old life in Hollywood behind him, content to live out his days on a farm in rural California with his teenage son.

But when infamous mobster and Las Vegas founder Bugsy Siegel is killed at his home in Beverly Hills, Craine is forced to face his past once again.

Summoned to Las Vegas to meet mob head Meyer Lansky, Craine is given the impossible task of finding Siegel’s murderers. He has no access to crime reports, no police contacts and no one to help in his investigation other than an ageing hit man and a female crime reporter with her own agenda. But Lanksy’s orders aren’t to be ignored; if Craine can’t find Siegel’s murderers in five days, he and his son will both be killed.

My thanks to Oneworld Publications for my review copy

Guy Bolton’s The Syndicate is a bit of a belter. I was drawn into the murky world of gangsters and their power plays from the very first pages as we “witness” infamous mob boss Bugsy Siegel being gunned down.

The shooting of one of America’s most notorious characters clearly created ripples at the time and another mob boss, Meyer Lanskey, wants to know who murdered Siegel. He summons Jonathan Craine to undertake the impossible mission of finding a murderer.

Working under extreme duress Craine is pulled from his quiet secluded life, he had been working on his farm, back to the metropolitan buzz of Hollywood and Las Vegas. He has worked these urban pastures in the past but time away from the cities must place him at a disadvantage as he tries to piece together clues which may lead him to identify a murderer.

Craine first appeared in The Pictures, a book I have not (yet) read but will certainly be hunting down after the huge blasts of enjoyment I experienced while reading The Syndicate. At no point did I feel that I wished I had read The Pictures before picking up The Syndicate – everything I needed to know was made clear without the presumption I knew the key players.

Guy Bolton does a fabulous job of building the environment and detail in The Syndicate which makes everything that occurs seem so vivid.  I tend to jump between titles and read a couple of books at a time but The Syndicate held my attention and nothing else was getting a look-in until I had finished reading this one. I love when I get so caught up in a story – sign of a cracking read.

If you enjoy hard-boiled American crime thrillers then this book is perfect for you. Highly recommended.

The Syndicate is published by Oneworld Publications and is available in hardback and digital format. You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Syndicate-Guy-Bolton-ebook/dp/B079ZV7YLJ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1538342993&sr=8-1&keywords=guy+bolton