The Hollow Man

Starred review from July 2, 2012
British author Harris’s searing first novel, a noir police procedural, features the anti-est of antiheroes, Det. Constable Nick Belsey, who wakes up one morning on Hampstead Heath, bruised, bloody, keyless, walletless, watchless, homeless, and bankrupt. From this low point, Belsey undertakes a personal investigation into the apparent suicide of Alexei Devereux, a high-flying international financier, whose ritzy Hampstead house becomes his secret pied-à-terre for his attempt to use Devereux’s resources as startup capital to escape the mess he’s made of his life. Supported by a convincing cast of reporters, policemen bent and otherwise, and villains great and small, Belsey draws on his intimate knowledge of London’s criminal underworld to unravel Project Boudicca, a multimillion-euro scheme to make gambling Britain’s 21st-century version of heroin. At one point, during an extended London pub crawl, Belsey feels “mystery settling in layers, like snow.” Readers should be prepared for a mind-bending resolution that hurtles down as remorselessly as an avalanche. Agent, George Lucas, Inkwell Management.