Smith 4 / Smith (ePub)

Stephen Smith, ex-multi-lingual torturer in chief, now a conscience-stricken berserker looking for a target. Having permanently dispatched his previous employer and his brother, who between them ran two rival, private security firms engaged to handle the work too dirty for the 'official' security services, Smith is somewhat at a loss.

So he welcomes a call from journalist and brief old flame Miriam Taylor, who, despite swearing never to deal with him again suddenly finds herself in need of a man with his special set of skills and his peculiar, unique idea of chivalry. Miriam has been reporting on the assault, rape and eventual murder of a female community cop, a 'plastic plod', by Harry Kimpton, a former football hooligan turned apparently respectable businessman who is standing to be Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner of Essex.

Kimpton is keen to move his security company up to the big time and has his eye on joining Smith's ex-colleagues who view him as strictly small time and not particularly smart. But, they find, he might have his uses.

An ambitious Catholic priest is embarking on a crusade to win converts from the Anglican church in Hurston, on Kimpton's home turf. Sensing possibilities in a conflict that might spread Smith's old colleagues do their best to ratchet up the row. They tell Kimpton to stir the pot and it is into a stew of violent nuns, old skinheads and enraged women that Smith jumps, feet first, doing his best to make as much mess as possible.

Meanwhile, Miriam finds that she has developed a taste for a certain amount of lethal chaos herself as evidenced by the fact that, there she is, in a pub full of sexist old racists holding a gun, feeling strangely empowered.

And there is one more intriguing development. The two security companies have decided they need a new boss, someone who can be as brutal as the people he commands, someone who is smart enough to survive threats from some very dangerous sorts, someone who doesn't take any of it seriously and yet, somehow, is a serious contender. Someone, perhaps, like Stephen Smith. That's what they are wondering. But what does Smith think?