The Bobby Dazzlers

Andrew Martin’s second novel is a contemporary gangster story set in York.

This is a brave change of direction after his first book, Bilton, a hilarious and scathing indictment of modern journalism, although both novels share Martin's inimitable sense of humour.

When the young narrator of The Bobby Dazzlers breaks into professional Yorkshireman Bryan Butteridge’s home to steal a couple of paintings, he gets caught. Rather than shopping him to the police, though, Bryan makes a proposal: steal four extremely valuable and rare chairs from a museum on the Moors for a cool £500,000.

Ludicrous and unlikely as the job sounds, he takes it on (it turns out that he has an extremely pressing reason for needing the cash), recruiting local ‘criminal mastermind’ Bill, Bill’s odious sidekick Walter, and a Cockney called Dean, who Bill is looking after for Dean’s very dangerous London cousin Neville.

Thus begins a sparkling, witty, pacy and in some ways touching who’s-double-crossing-who caper, in which our narrator is by far the most intelligent of the four criminals.

By setting the book in Yorkshire, Martin is able to have great fun with regional accents and attitudes; he similarly enjoys himself with Dean’s cockney accent. And there’s a fair bit about trains, too, though not in a spoddy way, heralding (in hindsight) the subject of Martin’s series of novels about Jim Stringer, the Edwardian rail detective.