The Treatment

Simply the best British novel Ive read this century David Peace
Will stay in my head forever...a fantastic book The Tablet
A maverick project that defies comparison Metro

An ArtsDesk Best Book of 2020

At a bus stop in south London, black teenager Eldine Matthews is murdered by a racist gang. Twenty years later, L Troops top boys - models of vice, deviance and violence - are far beyond justice. There are some people the law will not touch.

But Eldines murder is not forgotten. His story is once again on everyones lips and the streets of south London; a story of police corruption and the elimination of witnesses. A solicitor, a rent boy, a one-eyed comedian and his minder are raising ghosts; and Carl Hyatt, disgraced reporter, thinks he knows why.
Theres one man linking this crew of rambunctious dandies and enchanting thugs, and its the man Carl promised never to challenge again: Mulhall, kingpin of Londons rotten heart and defender of L Troops racist killers. Carl must face up to the morality of retribution and the reality of violence knowing that he is the weak link in the chain; and that he has placed everyone he loves within Mulhalls reach.

The Treatment is steeped in Londons criminal past, its shadows of corruption and institutional racism. Like a seventeenth-century revenge tragedy, its characters reel from the streets, bars and brothels, hyperarticulate and propelled by wild justice.