Dead Birds

by John Milne

Now retired from the Metropolitan Police, disabled Jimmy Jenner tries his hand as a private eye, but it all starts to go wrong when the woman he is minding is killed. As he attempts to atone for his... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0140097287
• ISBN13: 9780140097283
• Release Date: January 1987
• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.

Customer Reviews

John Milne - Dead Birds

This moody, tense, and streetwise mystery, a London version of the Chanleresque, brings a compelling new voice to the field of crime and introduces a detective who, much to his own peril, doesn't know when to call it quits. Jimmy Jenner is something of a celebrity. His career as a cop ended when a terrorist bomb took off his leg and left his two partners dead, and now he's one of a rare breed in London - a private eye, tough, sarcastic, hard-boiled, and deaf in one ear, who lives off his wits and contacts in London's East End. The odd writ served, the odd suitcase of stolen goods recovered - it keeps him out of trouble. Until one day when Jimmy is hired to do some minding. The lady in question is the wife of a fight manager, George Duncan. The first thing Jenner notices about her is that she's beautiful. The next is that she doesn't act like George Duncan's wife. And the last thing he notices is her dead body, the face skimmed off by a butchers knife. Jimmy takes his failures personally, and the mystery of Allison Duncan becomes an obsession that plunges him into a deep well of uncertain motives, shady deals and international crime. At the bottom of it, years later and off the coast of Spain, lies a fatal surprise...

pretty good detective story

Dead birds is an intriging mystery. the story holds your attention throughout. the end dont come until the very end after jimmy jenner has already given up on the case. thats an interesting twist. the ending is pretty unlikely and a bit farfetched but the story is quite good anyway. jenner is an interesting character. i would recommend this book for mystery or PI fans either one.