The Last Days of Johnny Nunn is the second DS Max Lomax novel. It moves Max on from its predecessor, Never Walk Away, to the year before the London Olympics. He’s drawn into the investigation of the murder of a community activist in south London, another site ripe for corruption and a turning point in our recent history. The book also tells the story of Johnny Nunn, a former boxer returning to his neighbourhood after a five-year absence to find that the home he left is in the hands of white-collar criminals and Olympics profiteers.
I’ve always been drawn to crime stories with an undercurrent of social realism, examining universal themes through specific human experience. For The Last Days of Johnny Nunn, that means throwing a light on what happens when the place you call home is taken away.
Max walks both sides of, he hits his stride from the off. He’s morally compromised and has no qualms about operating in the world between policing and intelligence. He knows he can’t save everybody or hold to account all those who consider themselves above the law, but he’ll try.