Ultra violent tale of gangland life in the 80’s is a rollercoaster ride at times difficult to understand written in vernacular style but well worth keeping with. Full of descriptive violence and at times veering off into strange political ramblings it’s an astonishing read with the promise of more to come!

I didn't manage to send the book to my kindle before it was archived so didn't get to read it. I'm sure it was a great book and have given maximum rating

This book was quite good read . The story was good I just found some parts hard to read as not been from London I found it hard to understand ,and some parts didn't make a lot of sense with all the political parts in it .

It's always good to try a new author's work and Blood Betrayal by Eric Richardson is even more interesting as it was written in Belmarsh Prison.
The book centres around the Hunter family,mostly brother Mat and Nic who are making their name in the London Gangland of 1980's London, and older readers will enjoy the references to events,fashions and confectionery of that era.
The story mixes fiction with criminal fact as the Hunters get involved with Pablo Escobar and the Brinks Mat robbers amongst others and there are a few tasty nuggets of information thrown in that will interest those with a knowledge of the people and crimes of that crazy era.
This is definitely not a book for the squeamish,the language is raw,some of it would see you in court if you used it in public these days, and much of the action is brutal.
As a first book it's a very good read, the "old London" of that era is realistically portrayed,and a rough old place it was, it's also very funny in places and I laughed out loud quite a few times.
It could have done with better editing,pages of political dialogue that just got boring and a weird sub-plot about a feminist group that had me skimming through after the first couple of mentions. That said, it's a great read and I think with tighter editing and avoiding getting side-tracked Eric Richardson could become a best-selling crime author.

Set in the eighties, a decade where anything seemed possible and greed was good, brothers Mat and Nic cut a swathe through the pubs and clubs of London dishing out sickening violence and quite literally getting away with murder. Spending too much time in the company of the brothers can get to feel quite claustrophobic so I welcomed the chapters dealing with McBride, a Welshman in the CID, determined to bring the brothers to heel. As was the case with the Krays, the brothers have numerous Police in their pockets and use intimidation and violence to silence any witnesses. Of course, the Krays finally ran out of luck and I dare say the brothers will too but we’re not there yet.

The dialogue can be grating at times but there are some genuinely funny lines, like diamonds in the rough, and it’s worth persevering to come across these little gems. The other aspect that I really enjoyed were those passages dealing with real criminals and events. The descriptions here are particularly well crafted and rather suggest that the author knows a lot more about certain events and individuals than the man on the street.

The London portrayed in Blood Betrayal is well and truly gone. Other aspects are not gone but have evolved over time.

Of course, this type of writing will not be everyone’s cup of Rosy Lee but I feel it’s one of those books where you need to come out of yourself and read it from afar, unattached, so to speak. The eighties was a special time and this homage makes no apologies for reclaiming it.