Reviewed by Tony Baer: VICTOR HEADLEY – Yardie.

Reviewed by Tony Baer: VICTOR HEADLEY – Yardie. The X Press, UK, hardcover, 1992. Pan Books, UK. paperback, 1993, 2018. Atlantic Monthly Press, US, hardcover, 1992. D. is a mid-level coke dealer in Kingston, Jamaica. His outfit sends him to London with a British passport and a couple bags of coke. He’s met by the London contacts at the airport and they head for a house to complete the deal. D.’s job is to hand over the coke, get the money, hang out for a bit, and fly home with the dough. But D.’s got bigger plans. At the London dealer’s home, D. asks to use the toilet, and escapes out the bathroom window (protected by a silver spoon), with half the goods in tow. D.’s got some buddies in the London slums (which are high living compared to the Kingston ghettos), including Donna, a woman he’d come to know biblically in his youth. D. is smart with his stake, and leverages it to become a kingpin in the London crack trade. The Jamaican drug lords have much less ruth than their non-Jamaican…