This is billed as the sixth of the Alan White authored continuation of Ian Kennedy Martin's original trio of novels. However, I suspect it might actually have been the first of the Balham books written. It's a lot more detailed than the other novels I've read, and as I recall the hardboiled but compassionate nursing sister who takes a shine to Regan appears in at least one other book.

Anyway, this is a fairly convoluted and often improbable tale about a disgruntled hotel employee who plots revenge on his former employers by setting up a massive multi-site blag and creating a private army of ruthless armed robbers from fellow low paid hotel workers. It's utterly preposterous but Balham/White brings such energy and pace to the proceedings that you're just carried along by the story. He gets Regan and Carter's voices right and draws vivid portraits of Haskins and Maynon as well as non TV series characters like Hilliard and Challenor (the latter possibly an in joke reference to notorious real life Flying Squad and CID man Harold "Tanky" Challenor). Does a good job of evoking the atmosphere of 70s London too - you can almost feel the dirt under your fingernails. Only criticism I've got is that, as with a lot of the other Balham books the ending is wrapped up a little too quickly. ( )