INFORMER Life in the Shadows as an Undercover Agent.

Hardback. Ron Farebrother was a professional informer, the first to reveal his undercover life in a book. His trade is crime but now, he says, only for the public good. For 6-yrs. he delivered into the hands of the Regional Crime Squad and other detective units, a procession of dangerous criminals, conspirators to murder, international drugdealers, gun-runners, pornographers, and a nationwide paedophile ring. He has also exposed a hashish-pizza man who delivered and a professional bride who married any foreigner seeking a British passport if the price was right. From his early years as a teenage actor in TV dramas like Budgie and Minder, Farebrother went on to become an outwardly straight businessman, a well-known face in the London underworld and the front man in California for deals between London gangsters and the US Mafia. When he was asked to kill a woman so her husband could make a £560,000 insurance claim, he decided to turn informer and exposed the husband, ensuring he was jailed for 9-yrs. He was named in open court as an informer. He realised his life was now in severe danger, but rather than go on the run, he decided to stay on his home patch and front his enemies. It wasn't just the villains who shuddered when they read their names in this book. Film stars, TV personalities and top sportsmen also figured prominently in the pages. Illus. 218pp. 8vo. h/back. F. in F. dw.