What do you think?
Rate this book
Night Time Cool
Bent Met police detective DI Frederick Street rules as the Sheriff of Shoreditch who loves shaking down the street goons he arrests. Elvis Street is the son who cannot stand his father for being the balls-out crook he caught in bed with his girl. Elvis wants to take Frederick down and end him forever. Neither father or son realises how much the other understands what controls them. Neither father or son will ever back down. Night Time Cool is the story of why?
304 pages, Paperback
Published July 24, 2018
About the author
Jamie Paradise
1 book3 followersJamie Paradise writes all of his stuff in a darkened mansion filled with the skulls of his ancestors XXX
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
January 18, 2019
A very different kind of read for me, I really enjoyed reading 'Night Time Cool; the first in a trilogy by Jamie Paradise.
It's very street, full of colloquial speech , drugs and devious plotting between father and son to a house music backing track that makes it feel like a forgotten summer of your teenage years despite it's winter in Shoreditch setting.
The characters are all as bad as each other, Fred Street and his son Elvis are the wrong side of the law even though one of them IS the law.
Fred is an awful father but you cannot really cheer on Elvis either, he is just as bad. Add in drug runners and a club scene and you get a stream of consciousness, alternating narrative that bounces back and forth to the tumultuous conclusion.
It's very street, full of colloquial speech , drugs and devious plotting between father and son to a house music backing track that makes it feel like a forgotten summer of your teenage years despite it's winter in Shoreditch setting.
The characters are all as bad as each other, Fred Street and his son Elvis are the wrong side of the law even though one of them IS the law.
Fred is an awful father but you cannot really cheer on Elvis either, he is just as bad. Add in drug runners and a club scene and you get a stream of consciousness, alternating narrative that bounces back and forth to the tumultuous conclusion.
August 15, 2018
Unique style, although can see comparisons with Elmore Leonard coming.
Great story, nice pacing. Good ending.
Well worth a read.
Great story, nice pacing. Good ending.
Well worth a read.
January 18, 2019
I’m going to honest from the off, this book was a challenging read for me, which pushed me well out of my comfort zone. I’m not sure that I am the target audience for this book (middle-aged, perennially un-hip, rural-living mother-of-five) but I’ve often said that one of the joys of blog tours is being given the opportunity to read book I would never normally choose, and books are all about exploration and gaining a different perspective on the world from your own, so being pushed and challenged is not necessarily a negative.
This book is set in a world of which I have not the slightest experience. A world of drug dealers and drug takers, pimps and prostitutes, bent policemen, porn stars, DJs and party animals. A gritty, fetid, dirty underbelly of a part of London dragging itself from ignominy to a rough-hewn, hipster trendiness, and the characters, plot, and particularly the language, all reflect this. If any of these things offend you, prepare to be offended, but I would suggest that you go in to the book with an open mind, because all of this is essential to the mood and character of the book and its inhabitants, and there is beauty to be found amongst the grime.
The characters in this book are, largely without exception, unpleasant. Even the ones that start out seemingly innocuous turn out to be something other. However, they are all interesting. Whether or not they are realistically portrayed is not something I am equipped to judge since, as noted previously, this is an alien world to me. All I can say is that I did believe them within the context of the novel. I suspect they are enhanced caricatures of real people, but whilst I was suspended in the world created by the author, I believed in them and was intrigued by their actions, motivations and their fates.
The setting fascinated me, grounded as it were in the predominately night time world of bars and clubs and hotels of Hoxton and Shoreditch, and the book convincingly transported me to that world. I could feel the bass beats of the music, the throb of energy and euphoria from the crowds. The writing was almost poetic on the subject of the club scene and I could tell that this was a world in which the author is passionately engaged; his ardour for the scene leaps of the page, reflected perfectly in his choice of rhythm and language to describe it. Whether or not this is something you have experience off, you can’t help but feel infected by it, be caught up in the tempo.
That being said, the language and sentence structures the author chooses to tell his story are unconventional and may be testing for some readers. His sentences are often staccato and unfinished. The language is crude in places; a dark urban patois that sounds like a foreign dialect to readers such as myself who are not from that world. The characters’ voices are coarse and jarring in places. All of this is quite deliberate and necessary for the story the author is telling, the world he is building, the characters he is creating, but it isn’t always easy to read. You will need to persist.
If I had one criticism of the book, it would be that the central story of father and son battling to outwit each other in a labyrinthine plot involving many other characters also trying to gain the upper hand and double- and triple-crossing one another became so dense and convoluted that I got lost and, somewhere in the middle slightly lost interest. However, the characters and language carried me through and it picked up again at the end. Again, you will need to persist.
In the end, for me, the persistence was worth the effort. The book paid off in stretching my mind and attitude. It challenged me, opened my eyes, made me uncomfortable, made me think. It gave me a new experience. It wasn’t a warm, happy, lazy reading experience, but it was one worth having.
This book is set in a world of which I have not the slightest experience. A world of drug dealers and drug takers, pimps and prostitutes, bent policemen, porn stars, DJs and party animals. A gritty, fetid, dirty underbelly of a part of London dragging itself from ignominy to a rough-hewn, hipster trendiness, and the characters, plot, and particularly the language, all reflect this. If any of these things offend you, prepare to be offended, but I would suggest that you go in to the book with an open mind, because all of this is essential to the mood and character of the book and its inhabitants, and there is beauty to be found amongst the grime.
The characters in this book are, largely without exception, unpleasant. Even the ones that start out seemingly innocuous turn out to be something other. However, they are all interesting. Whether or not they are realistically portrayed is not something I am equipped to judge since, as noted previously, this is an alien world to me. All I can say is that I did believe them within the context of the novel. I suspect they are enhanced caricatures of real people, but whilst I was suspended in the world created by the author, I believed in them and was intrigued by their actions, motivations and their fates.
The setting fascinated me, grounded as it were in the predominately night time world of bars and clubs and hotels of Hoxton and Shoreditch, and the book convincingly transported me to that world. I could feel the bass beats of the music, the throb of energy and euphoria from the crowds. The writing was almost poetic on the subject of the club scene and I could tell that this was a world in which the author is passionately engaged; his ardour for the scene leaps of the page, reflected perfectly in his choice of rhythm and language to describe it. Whether or not this is something you have experience off, you can’t help but feel infected by it, be caught up in the tempo.
That being said, the language and sentence structures the author chooses to tell his story are unconventional and may be testing for some readers. His sentences are often staccato and unfinished. The language is crude in places; a dark urban patois that sounds like a foreign dialect to readers such as myself who are not from that world. The characters’ voices are coarse and jarring in places. All of this is quite deliberate and necessary for the story the author is telling, the world he is building, the characters he is creating, but it isn’t always easy to read. You will need to persist.
If I had one criticism of the book, it would be that the central story of father and son battling to outwit each other in a labyrinthine plot involving many other characters also trying to gain the upper hand and double- and triple-crossing one another became so dense and convoluted that I got lost and, somewhere in the middle slightly lost interest. However, the characters and language carried me through and it picked up again at the end. Again, you will need to persist.
In the end, for me, the persistence was worth the effort. The book paid off in stretching my mind and attitude. It challenged me, opened my eyes, made me uncomfortable, made me think. It gave me a new experience. It wasn’t a warm, happy, lazy reading experience, but it was one worth having.
February 5, 2026
Night Time Cool has been tonally compared to both Martin Amis and Irvine Welsh, however I would respectfully disagree based on the fact that I struggled to finish one of either of the authors' works,but this one roared away with me from page 1. I would say it is closer to Jake Arnott instead.
It's very visual, very stream of consciousness from the character point of view, and uses street terminology and punctuation to add authenticity . The story is littered with punch and counter punch, bending and weaving between Elvis, planning to take down his dad Fred, and Fred knowing Elvis wants him gone. In the middle, a woman, Camilla, belonging to Elvis but found in bed with Fred. Unforgiveable.
Short staccato sentences and snappy chapters help the story fly by. It's London setting adds to the atmosphere and you can hear the growling accents of the Shoreditch based characters rising up from the page. There's so much going on that you really need to pay attention to the twists and turns and there is a killer hook at the end.
Thanks again to Jamie Paradise, Anne Cater and Unbound for this ARC in return for an honest review.
It's very visual, very stream of consciousness from the character point of view, and uses street terminology and punctuation to add authenticity . The story is littered with punch and counter punch, bending and weaving between Elvis, planning to take down his dad Fred, and Fred knowing Elvis wants him gone. In the middle, a woman, Camilla, belonging to Elvis but found in bed with Fred. Unforgiveable.
Short staccato sentences and snappy chapters help the story fly by. It's London setting adds to the atmosphere and you can hear the growling accents of the Shoreditch based characters rising up from the page. There's so much going on that you really need to pay attention to the twists and turns and there is a killer hook at the end.
Thanks again to Jamie Paradise, Anne Cater and Unbound for this ARC in return for an honest review.
January 2, 2020
I enjoyed this book a lot more than I expected to. I don't know Shoreditch and have little experience of the drugs-n-dance scene, but Jamie Paradise conjours up a real sense of place and people in his debut novel. The style might not be for everyone - staccato sentences and lots of in-the-know lingo - but he pulls it off by giving us a book that is more stylish than stylised. The characters are larger than life but never pretend to be anything else, and while the final set piece felt a little undramatic after such a build-up, this is the first of what will be a trilogy so perhaps there is more in store for the father and son duo at the heart of the story.
As with all books, the best thing I can say is that I really enjoyed reading it. It's like a Guy Ritchie movie without the dodgy acting.
As with all books, the best thing I can say is that I really enjoyed reading it. It's like a Guy Ritchie movie without the dodgy acting.
August 29, 2018
A coke-fuelled wankfest of generally unlikeable characters. Leavened with some great and almost poetic passages on partying. Meanders off into unresolvedness. Obvious debt to John Niven but not in the same league I’m afraid.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 30, 2018
Thought the book was good to read but in the end it lacked something. My ratings would 3 for anticipation 3 for enjoyment and 2 for retrospect. The 2 in anticipation is down to being a patron of the book on inbound.
February 20, 2019
Unquestionably one of the worst written books I’ve ever set eyeballs on. Cringey, forced “colloquial” dialogue made it unbearable. Imagine if Danny Dyer wrote a book over a weekend coked up. It’d be better than this.
August 19, 2018
Anti-hero is a bent copper in East London, was entertaining but formulaic on the links between drug dealers, police and porn. All done much better before. I did learn from it though.
January 2, 2019
The plot had a decent enough number of twists and turns but the style jarred with me horribly. Your mileage may vary.
September 11, 2018
Cool. Wicked. Mad - no, "madferit!" And that's just the copper at the centre of Jamie Paradise's debut novel Night Time Cool, recently published by Unbound. Imagine Regan from the Sweeney with absolutely no moral compass, not even the one he definitely wouldn't have had in the Wayfinder shoes he'd never have been seen dead in, not even at primary school.
Frederick Street is a monster(Monster!Monster!) However, he has style, panache and... brio. Much like the prose in Jamie's book. At first, I confess, I felt as linguistically out of my depth as I did watching the first episode of The Wire - but you know what? By the time I got to Chapter 3 it was fine, I was bowled along by the sheer energy of it.
This is a pacy book, but one to be read carefully, for the plot concerns the twisted plots that all the main characters, from Frederick's DJ son to (my favourite) Wade Long ,the porn star blackmailer, are hatching against each other.
I found reading Jamie's writing the closest thing to reading a graphic novel that any book without pictures can be. That is a compliment, be in no doubt.
Very Night Time Cool for Cats. Read it.
Frederick Street is a monster(Monster!Monster!) However, he has style, panache and... brio. Much like the prose in Jamie's book. At first, I confess, I felt as linguistically out of my depth as I did watching the first episode of The Wire - but you know what? By the time I got to Chapter 3 it was fine, I was bowled along by the sheer energy of it.
This is a pacy book, but one to be read carefully, for the plot concerns the twisted plots that all the main characters, from Frederick's DJ son to (my favourite) Wade Long ,the porn star blackmailer, are hatching against each other.
I found reading Jamie's writing the closest thing to reading a graphic novel that any book without pictures can be. That is a compliment, be in no doubt.
Very Night Time Cool for Cats. Read it.
January 14, 2020
I really struggled with this book. The author uses lots of very short sentences and I struggled with many of the words and expressions used as being an old age pensioner in Glasgow the dialogue of younger people in east London seemed like a foreign language! Apparently this crime novel about a corrupt police detective in Shoreditch and Hackney is meant to be funny but the humour passed me by. I am not sure that I even understood the ending.
March 28, 2025
This book is a movie. It’s so far been missed by producers of Trainspotting , Filth, Blow!! ( better than )
Read it “thrice now” third time lately thanks to another off the charts book Jamie’s written “Adventures in LovE”
Keep them coming… everyone needs to read your work. It’s completely unique and a must travel passage of anyone’s life!!
Read it “thrice now” third time lately thanks to another off the charts book Jamie’s written “Adventures in LovE”
Keep them coming… everyone needs to read your work. It’s completely unique and a must travel passage of anyone’s life!!
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews