The Murder Exchange

by Simon Kernick

(2003)

Publisher: Minotaur Books

When ex-mercenary Max Iversson is introduced to nightclub owner Roy Fowler, he senses immediately that the man’s trouble.

Five grand for a couple of hours’ work? That’s what nightclub owner Roy Fowler’s offering ex-mercenary Max Iversson to act as security for a meeting he’s having with the ‘businessmen’ who are supposedly buying his club. But when he and two colleagues accompany Fowler to a deserted north London industrial estate to exchange the deeds for the money, it turns out to be not so much a double-cross as a bloodbath. Three men end up dead, and Iversson only just gets out alive. Now he wants to know who’s behind the killings. Now he wants to know who’s behind the killings.

Detective Sergeant John Gallan is also looking for answers. He’s investigating the fatal poisoning by snakebite of a doorman from Fowler’s club. Lead are scarce and when they do appear so do bodies.

But Gallan keeps digging away, unearthing in the process a murderous conspiracy spanning this investigation and another, more heinous murder that’s been shelved, unsolved, for a long time. Unknown to each other, he and Iversson are also heading towards a final, devastating confrontation from which neither man is likely to emerge intact.