In an unnamed city in England’s Midlands, a pair of well-dressed burglars are having a successful run, breaking into rich people’s homes during the daytime when they’re supposed to be gone. But one day they burgle a TV director’s house, to find his wife, Maria Ray, at home. They rob the place anyway, and there are sexual sparks between one of the burglars – Jerry – and Maria. But the big prize of their day’s haul is a kilo of cocaine, hidden in a wall safe. Maria’s husband had been “holding it for a friend.”

So begins John Harvey’s police procedural Rough Treatment. As Jerry the burglar and Maria begin a torrid affair, Inspector Charlie Resnick, the hero of this series, heads up the police investigation. The clues will lead to organized crime and possible police corruption.

There’s  much to be said for Rough Treatment. It has a creative idea – particularly memorable for the character of the burglar with a heart of gold. Inspector Charlie Resnick himself is a pretty good hero, with a properly tragic back story – I wish we’d been given more information about it. One would need to read the first book in the series, I suppose – this is the second.

I found the writing style kind of ragged, though – the author is inclined to make sudden scene changes without alerting the reader (this may be a formatting problem, though). He also likes to begin scenes without telling us where they’re taking place, leaving that illumination for a few paragraphs on. Which annoys me.

The story is set in the 1990s, and so is gratifyingly free from the fashionable 50-50 male to female personnel ratio that’s become so popular today, at least in fiction. Cop humor is much in evidence, and in the (general) absence of women, tends to be pretty dirty, without any of the wit we find in John Sandford’s novels. There’s also a lot of offensive racist talk (disapproved of, of course). The sex scenes get pretty steamy too.

Rough Treatment was all right of its place and time, but I didn’t love it.