It is 1968 and Detective Sergeant Cathal Breen is 32. London is starting to swing, with pop music, drugs, and free love.  But Breen has not been having fun: he has been caring for his father who had been ill. Now his father is dead, and so he can relax more.  He isn’t sure whether he really likes how London is changing. He encounters all sorts of people in his job and the hippies are annoying, but then so are many others, including those in the establishment. Breen gets a case of a man who has been killed and is then left to burn in a building. He is helped by a “Woman Police” staff person, Helen Tozer, and the two of them get on well. Breen needs someone who stands by his side as he starts to make trouble in his investigation, following the truth even when others start telling him to drop his search.  He discovers that the dead man is the son of a Government Minister, and so there are political considerations.  Breen has to deal both with the problems within the police, the hippies in London, politicians, and criminals, and his own demons as he considers life now that he no longer has to look after his father. He is a gruff character with wisdom and compassion. The Kings of London is also surprisingly funny, drawing on the clash between the old and the new approaches to life. His interactions with Tozer, an incipient feminist, are particularly interesting and enjoyable. 

The performance of the unabridged audiobook by Cameron Stewart is done well: the different characters are easy to distinguish and the energy is good. This book is the second in a trilogy set in London in 1968, but there’s no need to read the prior one to understand what is going on.

© 2015 Christian Perring

Christian Perring, Professor of Philosophy, Dowling College, New York