Viva La Madness

J. J. Connolly the favorite voice of London gangster fiction returns with a tour de force: the Get Carter of the noughties, "Layer Cake" has also been made into a highly-praised film by Matthew Vaughn, starring Daniel Craig and Sienna Miller (it's also the most shoplifted book in England). Now Connolly is back with a sequel that sees him on the same stunning form, with his trademark razor-sharp dialogue and quick-fire violence, but also finding dark humor and pathos in the lives of violent men. From the London underworld, "Viva la Madness" moves to international crime with trans-Atlantic drug deals, money laundering, and high-tech electronic fraud, portrayed with the same uncanny believability. The anonymous hero of "Layer Cake" is pulled back into the drug game before he can escape to a sunny retirement. In a dazzling combination of London low-life, Caribbean high-life, and Venezuelan drug cartels toting machine-guns in Mayfair, our hero's voice and mission are authentic, thrilling, and whiplash-inducing in equal shares.