Spider Trap

Imagine a British John Gotti, a Teflon Kray brother, if you will; now you have Edward “Spider” Roach, a ruthless but brilliant kingpin who began in the Jamaican expat area of London known as Cockpit Lane but now preys on folks across the British Isles.

Spider Trap contains so many twists upon surprising twist that almost anything one says about it would prove a spoiler. Let’s just say that the police have been trying to nab Spider Roach and his three menacing sons for so long — and so unsuccessfully — that the higher-ups have given orders to leave them alone so as to not be humiliated — and accused of harassment — yet one more time. However, the deaths of two teenage girls leads Chief Inspector David Brock’s team to show more discover three more corpses in the same field — corpses of “Yardies” (Jamaican immigrants) — dating back to the 1980s, when Brock was assigned to that very area.

Spider Trap’s very title is an irony — although to explain why would be to reveal too much. As Brock gingerly begins to investigate the Roach family yet again, he hopes that, for once, he will be able to pin at least some of the murders, drug trafficking and mayhem that Spider Roach has wrought at his door. However, in the ensuing decades, Roach has cultivated the air of a legitimate businessman and his financial and social ties reach into the police department and into the very halls of Parliament. Roach fancies himself invincible. Can Brock find a chink in that armor? As the many corpses in Roach’s wake testify, Brock’s playing a very dangerous game.

Readers of course will be thrilled by the suspenseful story — one that will keep you reading late into the night. (Newcomers to the series won’t have any trouble beginning with Spider Trap.) But longtime fans of Brock and his loyal and fearless Detective Sergeant Kathy Kolla will be interested in learning more about Brock’s early career. As with all of Barry Maitland’s novels, Spider Trap provides an education to readers — particularly those of us outside of the UK; in this case, we learn so much about the violence-laden history of Jamaica and of the Jamaican diaspora to the Brixton district of South London — including the 1981 Brixton riot and the conditions that led to it. I learned so much, but it never detracted from the superb plot. Don’t miss this one! show less

Barry Maitland is the author of a series of nine crime novels so far featuring the team of ‘Brock and Kolla’. Some years ago, I remember reading one of the earlier ones, The Chalon Heads which was set in the world of stamp collecting. A plot involving gangsters and forgers behind the philately made an otherwise potentially dry subject a rather good read. Interestingly, for a Brit who relocated to Australia in the mid 1980s, Maitland’s series is set in and around London. Returning to the area where he grew up for his novels, Spider Trap is set south of the river in Lambeth. Scotland Yard’s Brock and Kolla are a classic police pairing – David Brock is the mature and experienced DCI, and DS Kathy Kolla is his insightful younger show more colleague, working in the Serious Crime Squad (SCI).

The story starts off with the bodies of two girls being discovered in a garage; they had been shot in the head and there was evidence of crack cocaine use. It would have been put down to just another gang murder, but the local MP Michael Grant, a charismatic young Jamaican, raised the profile and the SCI were called in. A young lad at the school next door, snuck onto the wasteground near the train tracks hoping to find the gun, but instead found a human jawbone before getting electrocuted on the rails, but his discovery leads to a further three bodies being found. However, these had been buried over twenty years previously! It appears that the same weapon was used – what’s the connection?

DCI Brock is ideally placed, as he started his detective career in Lambeth, and he remembers the Brixton Riots of 1981, and a local family, the Roaches, who ran organised crime in the area, headed by the formidable ‘Spider’ Roach. Now he and his sons are running successful seemingly legitimate businesses, it’s hard for Brock to believe that they’re not involved, but you can’t make arrests without concrete evidence. The investigation gets going, and Brock and Kolla concentrate on identifying the older bodies, investing hours of legwork on the case, but all the while Brock is sure that the Roach family is behind it somehow.

Off duty, Kolla is starting a relationship with another police officer, Tom Reeves from Special Branch. Reeves is used to working undercover and using unconventional methods to get results, but when he shows interest in the case, Brock is happy to have him seconded in to help – Kathy isn’t so sure this is a good thing. All the hard slog begins to pay off and the MP Grant is very helpful – but they still need that incontrovertible proof to put the Roaches away. Then events take a significant turn, (more I cannot say), but everything escalates and the ensuing chaos can only lead to a confrontation with Spider Roach.

Fans of police procedurals will enjoy this novel. As with any series, starting at the beginning can offer the rewards of getting to know the main characters intimately, however Spider Trap worked very well on its own. Brock and Kolla are both professional and competent, but also very likeable, complementing each other’s abilities well. Their working relationship has an almost familial aspect to it – Uncle and favoured niece perhaps.

Naturally the first half of the novel is involved with setting the scene, and giving us the back story about the Jamaican immigrants to the area, the Brixton riots and the current culture; the locations are all vividly described and realistic. In the second half as plot twists come thick and fast, the action gets more complex and page-turning.

I shall definitely be returning to the Brock and Kolla series. The fifth in the series Silvermeadow set in a large mall like those giant temples to shopping outside London sounds particularly attractive, but I shall probably start at the beginning... show less

Spider Roach, his very name a combination of the insect pests that we all hate, is the perfect illustration of the adage that evil breeds evil. Back in the 1980s he controlled the hotbed of gangster land around Cockpit Lane. Now an old man, 20 years on he still controls it - his 3 sons are evil and always have been, and they seem to have married and begotten evil too. Brock had dealings with Roach back in the 1980s and he emerges from retirement in SPIDER TRAP to warn Brock off from his current investigation into the spider's web of evil he has built up over the decades. Two young girls have been found shot dead in Cockpit Lane, a boy is electrocuted as he tries to cross the electrified rail line to get to the nearby waste land where show more "brown bread" is rumoured to be hidden, and then the police begin to dig up 20 year old skeletons buried in the waste ground. #10 in the Brock and Kolla series show less

It is a cold winter’s night, and the snow is falling heavily in Cockpit Lane. Anxious to get home, a night watchman nearly misses the open door that leads to the discovery of the bodies of two sixteen year old girls. Cockpit Lane lies in an area of London where Jamaican immigrants have made their homes; a place seething with poverty, racism and crime. Detective Inspector David Brock and Detective Sergeant Kathy Kolla from Scotland Yard's Serious Crimes Branch lead the investigation. While the police are scouring some waste land near the scene of the crime, a young boy is doing a search of his own. When he is electrocuted on the nearby railway line, a human jawbone is discovered in his pocket. This discovery leads to three skeletons, show more victims from the time of the Brixton riots in the 1970’s. From this point on author Barry Maitland cleverly intertwines the dual investigations into the current victims and the past ones. DI Brock used to work in the area when he was a sergeant. He immediately thinks of the Roach family, who once terrorised the area. The leader of the family, Spider, is now elderly; his sons are assumed to be respectable businessmen. However Brock believes that once a villain, always a villain, and starts to widen his line of investigation to include the Roaches.

Thrown into the mixture is the local MP, Michael Grant. He is a Jamaican immigrant, and like Brock is convinced the Roaches have something to do with both sets of murders. He constantly hampers the investigation by dropping in unannounced into the police station to see what lines of investigation they are following, and making what he believes to be helpful suggestions. The personal lives of both Brock and Kolla enter the story, but more to expand our knowledge of the two characters rather than detract from the story. All Maitland’s characters, both good and bad, are consistent and real. These are the men and women you would see in the local pub or street market. None of the characters are out of place in their setting

SPIDER TRAP has a complicated plot. There is a lot going on all at once, but Maitland slowly draws the strings together, letting one drop occasionally to send the reader off on another tangent only to drag it back in. It all builds to a climatic and bloody crescendo in north Wales. SPIDER TRAP is Maitland’s eighth book in the Brock and Kolla series. show less

I've been working in Amsterdam for over 2 months now, most of which has been spent living out of a suitcase in the Marriott hotel. The Marriott has recently refurbished all of their lobby area, including the executive lounge. The lounge now features some bookshelves which are stocked with new, unread books. As I had just finished my current book, I went downstairs to the lounge and did a swap for "Spider Trap" by Barry Maitland. Granted, the choice was limited, but Maitland's book did seem interesting.

A shooting of two teenage girls in inner South London leads to the unearthing of 3 skeletons on an abandoned patch of ground. DCI David Brock and DSI Kathy Krolla are assigned to the case, which takes them back in history to the Brixton show more riots of 1981 and brings them face to face with a long-established London crime family, headed by Spider Roach.

This novel is one of a series of nine in the Brock and Krolla series, written by Maitland, who has lived in Australia since the mid-1980s. Despite this, Maitland sets his novels in the neighbourhood of his childhood, South London. Despite such a legacy, this novel is a worthwhile read in its own right and will probably entice a lot of readers to pick up more of Maitland's novels.

Maitland skillfully mixes the past and present as he tells this story of organised crime and murder. The story is firmly embedded in the culture of the area and builds well towards the end. His story of a white family controlling all black crime, while distancing themselves from the law is intriguing. But ultimately, they doom themselves through a foolish act. This is a well-written, classy crime novel that isn't sensationalist, but instead intelligent. show less

I didn't enjoy this one much. Police procedurals about organized crime are never as interesting to me as those about more personal crimes. This was also rather slow. The best part was the parliamentary committee (words I thought I'd never write!)

Also, I'm getting tired of Kathy's poor choice in men, although very thankful the author has paired her with Brock in a non-romantic working partnership.

Easy read, but I found some of the plotting a bit predictable. Like who's going to turn out to be the bad guy. Although, to Maitland's credit, I wasn't always right! Haha.