THE CORNERMEN

A Scotland Yard procedural with the New York Mafia moving in on a pair of psychotic London supercriminals, the Magnus cousins, modeled on the infamous real-life Kray twins, Ronnie and Reggie. The lead is Detective Inspector Derek Torry, a lapsed Catholic whose fiancee dumps him because of his guilts (he hasn't bedded her once in their two-year engagement). Soon Torry is making it with Jenny, a suspect in a triple bomb-murder, whose former boyfriend was arrested at Dover for smuggling 150 pounds of heroin into the country in his Bentley (she tipped the coppers). Vendettas explode left and right. When two Mafiosi are blasted in their London hotel room, the Mafia hits back by blowing up the Magnus cousins' Statue of Eros gambling house. And the Yard is unhappy with two of their own "taken out." Despite the toneless, savage dialogue, the novel sells a picture of the Mafia that is all glossy efficiency and probably at odds with the real thing. Intense hokum.