Marbella Hustlers

It is an uncertain world in 1982, the time of The Falklands War, and this is not the Marbella most of us know today. This was Marbella at the dawn of its nascent danger and depravity. We never would have guessed what goes on behind those sun baked walls nor how many miscreants lurk in the shadowed ancient alleys of the city. No-one can withstand the top-class villains who reside here. That is until Don Ferguson, a hefty ex-Royal Marine chunk, and his even heftier German ex- Foreign Legion chum, Hans Ehrlich, are asked to go down to solve a Costa del Sol murder that soon develops into a potential global atrocity. The two heroes deal with vicious and merciless international villains, and still have time to engage with some of the most willing girls from one of the best brothels in Spain. Whatever the circumstances, these two boys give of their wholehearted best. It’s a bumpy ride they are engaged in, accompanied by lashings of graphically authentic local colour, flamenco, gunfire, explosions and death sighs all round. So, not altogether a book for the squeamish, but this story of murder and mayhem is enlivened with draughts of wit and more than one dash of knock-about fun. Of course, you know these two guys must win in the end, but the exuberance of Mike George’s writing will nevertheless persuade you that they are in the deepest of odiferous material. A roller-coaster? You betcha. And once you start, you won’t want to get off.