Layer Cake

The bestselling, gripping crime novel publishing in a must-have 20th anniversary edition – featuring new content by the author.

Layer cake (n): a metaphor for the murky layers of the criminal world.

Smooth-talking drug dealer X has a plan to quietly bankroll enough cash to retire before his thirtieth birthday. Operating under the polished veneer of a legitimate businessman, his mantra is to keep a low profile and run a tight operation until it's time to get out .

When kingpin Jimmy Price asks him to find the wayward daughter of a wealthy socialite who's been running around with a cokehead, he accepts the job with the promise that after this he can leave the criminal world behind with Jimmy's blessing. Oh, and he needs to find a buyer for two million ecstasy pills acquired by a crew of lowly, loud-mouth gangsters, the Yahoos. Simple enough, until an assassin named Klaus arrives to scratch him off his list, revealing this job is much more than it seems at first.

From the glitz of the London club scene of the 1990's to the underbelly of its criminal world, Layer Cake is the best in British crime fiction.

'A storming piece of work.'
- D. J. Taylor

'Fast and funny and just frightening enough to make you sit up all night finishing the book.'
- Independent on Sunday

About the Author

J.J. Connolly was raised and still lives in north-east London. He is the author of acclaimed bestseller Layer Cake, which he adapted into a blockbuster film for Sony Pictures and director Matthew Vaughn. He has since been working with Jason Statham on the TV adaptation of the sequel Viva la Madness, optioned by Sky TV.