Unfortunately his little brother is easily led, and this time has landed them both in a whole lot of bother. Yes the dialogue is clunky and makes you think that everyone in London talks like they're in an early Guy Ritchie film.

None of these period details ever pays off in any way, nor do they serve to ground the story in any real sense of place and time. Of course, with O’Sullivan being known as the greatest snooker player who’s ever lived, there are a couple of references to the game throughout. For no believable reason, this young man suddenly develops the ability to solve complex crimes, read crime scenes, beat up gangsters, breaking and entering without leaving any clue.Frankie gets himself into lots of scrapes and some unfortunate situations as the story progresses and I actually believed in him as a character and wanted him to find those answers and come out on top.

For the most part, though, it just settles into the background, and the book itself mostly follows what happens when our protagonist’s brother Jack wakes up in his house with blood everywhere and no recollection of how he got there. Having said that, I've read less authentic crime thrillers and some of the interplay between the characters is actually done with a bit of heart and, dare I say it, panache.But when his younger brother, Jack, is accused of a vicious gang-related murder, Frankie must get his hands dirty to prove his brother's innocence. That particular author's bizarre and turgid novels introduced me to the adventures of football manager Steve Barnes and, more broadly, the strange, fascinating, even worrying world of professional sportsmen's vanity literature. Ronnie is interested in Buddhism, and was the first celebrity to endorse Jeremy Corbyn at the general election. Amidst this teeming underworld of brothels, gambling dens and, yes, snooker clubs, Frankie must try to say one step ahead of gangland undesirables and the smelly old bill.

What follows is Frankie’s quest to clear his brother’s name and find out who was ultimately responsible. p>Read about how we’ll protect and use your data in our Privacy Notice. The majority of this book hangs on the central mystery of what the hell actually happened, and indeed that was enough to keep me going from start to finish.The choice to set it in the mid-nineties is also a slightly strange one – "everyone was into Blur and Oasis these days, but [Frankie] still reckoned the old tunes were the best" – and the trappings of the era are vaguely gestured toward, rather than buttressed by necessary plot points. I should be clear, I use ivory tower here in the metaphorical sense, since my home within the newly built Steve Bruce Literary Archive is more accurately a 4,000 acre, chrome-plated, Jaguar-themed ashram filled with pie vans. My interest was piqued so much that as soon as I got in, I had a squiz at the reviews and, seeing them as mostly positive, duly downloaded it. No, in the end, Framed's worst offence might be its rote premise and perfunctory execution, but neither crime stops it from racking up a few thrills.

Although it does flirt with it from time to time, the book on the whole avoids the nostalgic sentimentality that surrounds accounts of the Krays and the Richardsons, although its relationship with the underworld is complicated. His frank memoir, which reads like a transcript from the psychiatrist's coach, explains that running - and the running community - gave him a sense of acceptance and achievement. Not the biggest fan of snooker myself, I stayed listening cos the show is entertaining whatever they talk about.Yes also, there were a few cliched moments to be had but, again, mostly in context and totally forgivable. Yes Frankie does become superman at times and I am not 100% that he would be that good at everything he does but I am willing to take one for the team and suck it up in the context of the story. It wasn’t great and it’s definitely not high literature, but it set out to do a job and succeeded at it.