There's a subtle difference between the geography of the Black County and Birmingham – but to the people who live there they are worlds apart. The narrator of Crimson Lining sets readers straight right from the start.
I grew up a poor Brit in 1960's Wolverhampton, pride of the magnificent Black Country. That’s the Midlands, not Birmingham. Don’t lump us in with bloody Brummies. Anyway, despite little education, a face that looks like I got slapped with a kipper at birth, and dress sense that makes Colombo look like a boardwalk model, I made something of meself. Against all the odds, I worked me way up through the police, and struck it lucky over the Pond, a thousand miles from the other Birmingham – Alabama. I had me own desk at what the Yanks call a three-letter law enforcement agency – not the CIA, the other bloody one.
Me first mission in yankee land: learn to speak proper. I'm a bit posh for a Yam Yam now – that's someone from the Black Country, in case you were scratching your bonce over that one. I think I've got the hang of me and my now – but initially, no bugger got a word I said. So, I speak different; who gives a toss, asks I? Surely you know what I mean?
"Or roight, yow, Trisha? D'ya get tha’ report for me, bab?"
I nearly got kicked out on my ear for asking FBI secretaries for reports in me – sorry, my – own lingo. Swallowing my pride, I tried to pull the Ozzy card. They were ’avin none of it.
I said to the boss, "Me old paranoid mucker, Prince of Darkness, is a fucking legend in the States. How come nobody made him talk like he had a plum in his gob?"
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