IF YOU CAN`T DO THE TIME, DON`T DO THE CRIME (Hard Landing - Stephen Leather)

Member Name: stuleg

Product:	Hard Landing - Stephen Leather
Date:	20/04/05 (90 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: British writing at its best

Disadvantages: None of note

“In prisons, those things withheld from and denied to the prisoner become precisely what he wants most of all.”

Dan `Spider` Shepherd has been there and done it in every sense of the word, but even he is surprised and a little reticent at the latest job his bosses want him to undertake – working undercover in a top security prison. Remand prisoner Gerry Carpenter is facing life behind bars, customs and police officers have compiled a mountain of evidence against the suspected drug baron and it seems to be an open and shut case against him. Unfortunately vital pieces of evidence are being destroyed, with surveillance tapes wiped and important paper work getting lost. Worst still, a Customs Officer who worked on the case is gunned down in front of his pregnant wife. With millions of pounds in off shore bank accounts and nothing to loose but his liberty it seems Gerry Carpenter will stop at nothing, and pay whatever it costs, to eliminate the case against him and thus secure his freedom. Shepherds task is to get close to Carpenter and find out how he is managing to orchestrate the killings and pay offs from behind bars, but in an environment full of psychotic murderers and hardened criminals Shepherd cannot afford to let his guard slip for a moment, an increasingly difficult task as he uncovers corrupt prison officers and vicious inmates willing to maim a man for the price of a phone card. Worst still, Shepherd discovers first hand just how vicious and ruthless Carpenter can be in his quest for freedom.

“Prisons don't rehabilitate, they don't punish, they don't protect, so what the hell do they do?”

Hard Landing by Stephen Leather was one of those books I did not want to end, I have always been a Leather fan and have read his entire back catalogue, and this book moved his writing on to a new level. I got completely swept along with the frank and often violent theme, occasionally wincing as I could see what was about to happen in all of its bloody detail. I felt sympathy with the main character as he struggled to stay in character twenty four seven, knowing that one loose word could result in his own painful death. I felt a certain amount of contempt for the ner-do-wells determined to make Shepherds task as difficult as possible and I felt pity for the prison officers that really had little control over the prison or its inmates. Mostly though I marvelled at the level of detail of prison life that Leather conveyed, the long stretches of boredom, the occasional and vicious violence and the feeling of hopelessness that many face when incarcerated.

“Better to build schoolrooms for the boy, than cells and gibbets for the man."

But why did I feel like that? Well, the small amount of time I have been inside a prison was a joyless experience, by there very nature prisons are desperate places for desperate people, and Leather captured that feeling to perfection. I could actually feel the tedium of being locked in a cell for twenty hours a day, the having to ask for permission before being able to go about the most basic of functions. Stephen Leather spent a day in Belmarsh prison talking to prison officers and a similar visit to Shepton Mallet saw him spending time with a group of lifers, all leading to valuable research that enhances the books reality. The books main character is a hard man with a military background and yet Leather humanises him by giving him a young son, thus you care far more about what happens to Dan Shepherd than if he was just a faceless action figure, an inspired piece of writing again by Shepherd. I also empathised with the desperation of the “Baddie” of the book, Gerry Carpenter, determined to evade justice whatever the cost. Not many books have left me feeling so passionate about its characters so kudos to Leather for that.

“A society should be judged not by how it treats its outstanding citizens but by how it treats its criminals.”

I give Hard Landing by Stephen Leather four stars out of five, an excellent book that captures its theme perfectly. I have knocked the fifth star off because the ending is slightly unbelievable but still readable none the less. If you are new to the crime and thriller genre I would recommend this book as a good starting point, sure it isn’t the most challenging read you will ever have but it is a good, unputdownable and smooth flowing book that will surely have you searching Stephen Leathers back catalogue for more of the same.

Hardback 376 pages
ISBN : - 0 340 73410 8
Published by Hodder and Stanton
Priced from £11.99

Summary: