Smith

Violence has been privatised. Smith works for a company that specialises in violent solutions."The natural government of the world is gangsterism. The establishment is the biggest gang in town.But gangsters worry that some day they won't be frightening enough, charismatic enough, clever enough . . . to prevent a revolution."Smith isn't interested in revolution.Revenge will do.For the moment. Stephen Smith is a translator. He is also trained to kill and hurt. Employed by a private security company owned by two brothers with a grotesque sense of humour, he goes out to the highest bidder, mainly the UK government who prefer not to use their own for any really dirty business. After a particularly gruesome event pricks his conscience Smith has a break down. The brothers disagree about what to do with him. One of them, Cornelius, wants him dead. The other, Horatio, likes the idea of keeping him alive, to annoy his brother. After a failed attempt on his life Stephen decides to go rogue, escaping and embarking on a series of escapades that will expose the company and the people who employ them. Cornelius orders Blake, a serving policeman, disturbed and psychopathic, to track Smith down. The two outsiders, both being used by people who hold them in disdain, create bloody mayhem across a violent Britain where, if 'the establishment' is the biggest gang in town, it is also an unwieldy dinosaur, vulnerable to attack from the wildly unpredictable Smith. Is Smith a revolutionary? An anarchist? He doesn't think so. As far as he is concerned, this is the response of reasonable people to an unequal society. And he'll keep it up as long as he's having fun.

One last explosion. One last outrage. Smith is getting too old for this business. Which business? The murder, kidnap, torture, blow up business. The rocking the world on its axis, to shake some sense into it, business. With just enough energy for a grand finale, he will need help. Most of the old crew are dead, but his apprentice, the schoolboy assassin Toby who is now accepted into the organization run by his former employers, he's still secretly loyal. And the poet who has a world of voices in his head is still in love with the ideas Smith presents. Both, like so many who meet him are also a little bit in love with the man himself. Then there are the happy coincidences that always seem to happen around Smith. Just at the point when he is searching for the most suitable targets for his righteous anger a dying politician and a guilty, washed up journalist send him a list that includes a raping patriarch of a criminal family. A corrupt and hateful newspaper editor. A child-murdering businessman. Smith uses them as the introduction, to the big show. And after the ear-splitting, sky-shattering climax: the come down. The sordid back stage shenanigans. More mess for the cleaners. Only once these are over and the last dregs of chaos have been rinsed from the night will he sleep. Until then…? Well, as Smith likes to say, keep love in your heart and a gun in your pocket.