The Layer Cake by JJ Connolly

1 minutes estimated reading time

The Layer Cake is a hard bitten crime novel of 90’s underworld London that the movie was based on. However the book is worth reading because the plot is similar but different to the film.

I won’t go into too much depth because that would spoil it for you, but suffice to say its a great read. The book doesn’t have the slick quality of the film, primarily because it has more depth.

From the thought that has gone into it, one may wonder as to how J.J. Connolly got his knowledge. Having worked and lived in clubland during the late 1980s and early 1990s the type of characters Connolly describes brought me right back to my early and mid twenties.

The Layer Cake mixing the world of private military contractors and criminal endeavour reminded me of a former boss who had an address book. The address book was alleged to be full of ‘good lads’ who could solve problems ‘at home or abroad’. He was anything but the action man himself, being obsessed with his Hugo Boss suits at the time. He’d apparently been employed because of his work for a major name in the road construction industry, before I’d worked for him.

Great fiction like other forms of art has an intrinsic truth hidden inside that otherwise wouldn’t be able to be told.

Get out and buy the book; watching the film before the book doesn’t affect your enjoyment of it. More book reviews here.

The Layer Cake