Got to love a page turner of a crime novel, an essential purchase for the upcoming winter when all you want to do is curl up with a good book

London, post War 1950s, Robbery, Gangsters and Race wars make up this excellent standalone from the brilliant Dominic Nolan.

I read Vine Street when that was released and whilst I don’t think is quite in the elite category that particular books sits in, it is very very good reading on its own merits.

The story follows a cast of characters, some louder than life Guy Ritchie style gangsters and some more likeable and believable in Addy, a young West Indian girl trying to hold her small family together.

It’s paced well, at times language needs re-reading as it’s written in the style of the times, but it all comes together for a thoroughly good read with some heart breaking moment but also some poignant ones to make you smile to.

It’s a fine effort from a superb author.

1950s London, rationing, ruins and racial prejudice. Throw in quite a cast of gangsters minor and major, and you have the setting for White City by Dominic Nolan. Initially we meet two young sisters, Addie and Ness (and their mother Stevie) and life is quite hard particularly when your father goes missing. Then there is a far more adult scene; it's four in the morning and there is a violent attack on a post office van carrying money and the aftermath of that. Part of that aftermath involves Dave Lander and "Mother" (who is anything other than motherly and not female!). This story is quite brutally violent at times.

The consequences of the successful blag on the post office van are wide ranging and are at the core of this book. People are missing and we get to know some of the families affected. We've already met Addie and Ness and we also get to know Claire, whose husband is missing, her son Ray and her brother Joe who is suspicious of Mother. I guess few people in this are exactly what they first appear to be. Dave Lander would be a good example of this and we hear that "Dave Lander never slept".

I found this a somewhat complex story and it took me a while to get to grips with it. In part this may be because of the language used which is probably authentic London gangs 50s style. Worth noting too is the fact that some language was used in this era that would definitely be considered offensive now.

For me the book has a really good feel of post war London. I liked the way that historical events and facts were woven into the story. A number of the characters a quite rich - I would call both Dave and Addie that. However I really did find it hard to like anyone in this. No one really gripped me and my attention was not held at times. I do remember the writer's way with rich colloquial language from his previous London historical book, Vine Street. However Vine Street held me in a way that this one did not. 3.5/5

White City is a powerful novel set in 1950's London,specifically the sleazy Soho of that era and the bombsites and squalor of Notting Dale and Brixton.
Mixing fact and fiction,both in its storyline and cast of characters ,White City is often bleak and violent, sometimes brutal, just like the city and times it's set in.

The tale begins with the real life East Castle postal van robbery in 1952,organised by crime lord Billy Hill. Led by enforcer Terry "Mother" Nunn the robbers carefully dispose of any evidence,to the extent that 2 families are left wondering why the man of the house hasn't come home. Another trusted Hill crony,Dave Lander who was on the robbery,finds himself with torn loyalties in more ways than one.

As in the author's previous book,the superb "Vine Street" ,London is almost a character in its own right with the rough working class areas and Soho teeming with criminals,many of them policemen,the remains of aristocracy slumming it and intent on blowing their family fortunes,celebrities and even a member of the Royal Family indulging in the excesses that were well-known but never reported at the time. The story moves on to it's finale in 1958 and a resolution to the tortured Lander's guilt and the Notting Hill race riots.

This is an excellent book very much in the style of James Ellroy with its gritty action , deeply flawed characters and the very worst of human nature. The struggles of the "little people", those living in the slums, those that people like Hill barely noticed and his cronies preyed on and exploited are expertly drawn and some of those characters are the real heroes in a story full of crooked policemen , the greedy,sordid and degenerate ranks of the upper classes and the self-styled criminal elite who are shown for what they really were.

Post-war London is a bombsite, literally. But it's not just the buildings in ruins.

Life is difficult for everyone, with gangsters and spivs ruling the roost.

So the splashing of a elaborate heist sends everyone into a frenzy.

But, on the day of the robbery, two families find that their fathers haven't returned home...