Price range: £5.99 through £9.99
Following the suspicious death of notorious underworld gangster, Lee Royle, his widow Jo and Eddie – the rival gangster Jo has been having an affair with – try to solve the murder.
“It happened at a place where three roads meet. Junction 1A of the M25, heading east towards Gravesend. There’s a killer on the road.”
Lee Royal – the King of Kent – is dead. Killed on the M25 in a brutal act of road rage. But was this a random attack or something more premediated – something stemming from a dark and long-kept secret? With Lee’s death, so begins a cat and mouse game to discover the truth …
Jo Royal, Lee’s wife, has long been discontented in her marriage. A complicated relationship and a marriage fraught with secrets and betrayals has left a steady resentment for Lee bubbling away under the surface. But does this give her motive enough to want him dead?
Eddie Pierce – young, ambitious and ruthless – is the new kid on the block. Determined at any cost to move up the ranks within the criminal underbelly of Kent, his growing infatuation with Jo only gives him more to fight for. But as his obsession with finding Lee’s killer takes over, his grip on what is fact and fiction begins to dangerously unravel. What is he capable of doing to become the next King of Kent?
“Blood Rival is a hugely enjoyable, dialogue-heavy dive into the murky world of Kent crime. Its interrogation of neo-noir tropes and densely plotted reversals recall the sly brilliance of Jean-Patrick Manchette, while the grimy flash and swagger is pure, singular Jake Arnott.”
– Joe Thomas author of Brazilian Psycho
“Only Jake Arnott could divine a course through the labyrinth of time and unsolved crime to the compulsive and revelatory Blood Rival – a riddle of a novel about power and morality, wrapped in the enigma of contemporary gangland and hidden in the vast psycho-geography of Britain’s badlands. Crime and punishment never had a more stylish or astute oracle.”
– Cathi Unsworth author of Bad Penny Blues
