Inside Straight by Ray Banks - e-book review

There’s nothing quite like the tale of an ordinary man who finds himself caught up in life-unravelling events to get the pulse racing… especially when he makes decisions which have us howling, ‘No, don’t do it, man’, to the Kindle. I say Kindle (other e-readers are available…) because Inside Straight, Ray Bank’s tale of an everyman caught between a rock and a hard place (or hard man, in this instance) is published by Blasted Heath, an innovative e-publishing house specialising in noir crime e-books.

Inside Straight takes a character out of a previous Banks novel (Dead Money) and makes him the protagonist of his own story. You don’t need to have read Dead Money to enjoy Inside Straight as from the opening line we’re in Graham Ellis’s head and looking through his eyes at the insalubrious surroundings of his new workplace on the Salford Riverside. Graham is a casino pit boss who’s found himself demoted and it’s his wounded pride and thwarted sense of status which tempt him into dangerous dealings with a local gangster and his repellent side-kick. Banks has a great turn of phrase and brings the seamy side of both Salford and the Casino industry vividly to life. The characters scratch, have bad breath and worse armpits… carpets are sticky, furniture is tacky and people are pale and pasty, living a sort of etiolated half-life through the long hours of the night.

It’s a marvellous read, I loved it, and with money being so tight at the moment, being able to download a fine and entertaining read for about the same as a pint of the anaemic lager served in Graham’s Casino is a real cause for celebration.

Inside Straight is published by www.blastedheath.com and available at: Amazon.co.uk Amazon.com Kobo Nook UK Nook US