Victor Headley

Yardie film

Film adaptation of Yardie, Victor Headley's first novel and part 1 of the Yardie trilogy, directed by Idris Elba, to be released in cinemas on 31st August 2018.

Domino

New release: July 2018

Dom, a promising boxing champion, grew up as a mixed-race adopted child in an all-white world in the north of England. His life is very much uneventful until he falls in love with Audrey, the only daughter of his coach. Running away to London, the young couple settles on an estate where Dom’s journey of discovery into his other cultural background soon exposes him once again to the ugly face of racism.

Despite trying his best to do right, after immersing himself in the urban culture and music of the black side of town, Dom becomes the innocent victim of an unfortunate series of events and has to go on the run. With his freedom, and even his life, at stake, and forces outside his control conspiring to bring him down, will Dom survive the last round?

​​

Yardie

Part 1 of Yardie trilogy.

Out of the tough West Kingston streets, D lands in London with a drug package to deliver to the boss of the UK branch of his organisation. When he instead decides to run away with the consignment, the hunt is on for him in North London’s Jamaican neighbourhoods, and it will take all his wits and bravado for him to stay alive.

Yardie has been adapted into a feature film, directed by actor Idris Elba and starring Aml Ameen as main character D. Yardie was released in the UK on 31st August 2018.

Excess

Part 2 of the Yardie trilogy.

​

Against all odds, D has survived his first year in London and set up his own organisation, after working out a truce with the boss of his former gang. Now a family man, with two women fighting to be his number one, D needs to stay sharp to evade the police and protect his territory from rival drug dealers. But as he becomes a victim to the drug habit, losing his grip on the streets and his soldiers losing their lives, D’s former survivor instinct might not be enough to stop his enemies lurking to take over his business, and his life.

Yush

Part 3 of the Yardie trilogy.

​

Keeping the drugs business he has built is proving even harder than setting it up, and D feels the stress of trying to remain at the top. His plans to get out of the the game in one piece with his family and enough to start a well-deserved new and peaceful life in Jamaica look even harder to achieve when a Jamaican cop lands in London to hunt him down. As vicious as he is corrupt, Lancey the ghetto cop is the toughest challenge D had ever faced and he knows that only one of them will make it out alive.

Off Duty

Born into the garrison communities of West Kingston, Carlton Nash sees the ghetto turn into a bloodbath during the savage elections of Nineteen-Eighty. Though he rises rapidly through the ranks of his neighbourhood gang, Carlton’s loyalty to friends and family makes him a liability in the cynical post-election atmosphere. After a shoot-out on the Spanish Town Road, Carlton faces either death or prison. It is then that Detective Rico Glenford walks into his life with a new possibility – the chance for Carlton to be re-born as a policeman.

Fifteen years later, Rico is gunned down on his wedding day in London. Carlton makes it his personal mission to find out who is behind the murder, and what Rico was really doing in England. A ruthless off-duty ghetto policeman in a dangerous new world of corruption with his colleagues in the London police, Carlton plays by his own rules.

Seven Seals

The young woman left for dead on a waste ground in East New York, seven bullets in her body and her fingerprints burnt-off, was not supposed to survive. After she disappears from the hospital ward, Detective Louis Burrows discovers her identity as Lisa Hanley, sister to the boss of one of the top Jamaican crime families in the US. Now her family want revenge, not only for her attempted murder, but also for the theft of the cash she was carrying.

Is the Mafia linked to Lisa's attempted murder, and will the streets of New York once again be bathed in the blood of gangland brothers? As her brother Early leads his own investigation, and bodies of mobsters begin to pop up all over the Big Apple, he finds out that the key to the shooting of his sister is much closer to home than expected.

Fetish

When Jamie lands in London from his native Bronx, New York, hoping to turn a new leaf, it seems that meeting the beautiful and classy Tania is the answer to his prayers. But on their first date Jamie finds himself staring down the barrel of a large ‘matic and discovers that behind this pretty face, there lies a dangerous history. It quickly transpires that his new girl’s father is a player in a dangerous game of money and power and has some serious high-powered enemies.
While he's asking himself whether a woman who brings that much heat is really worth pursuing, Jamie is dragged into playing 'middle man' in a risky business with potentially fatal consequences. Jamie will need to call on all his instincts learned on the tough streets of New York to keep Tania and himself alive.

Here Comes The Bride

Marrying the mother of his two children seems to be the right thing to do after twelve years together. As the countdown to the wedding begins, Mo realises most of his family and close friends seem strangely less than happy about it.

In the three weeks leading up to the wedding, Mo is to discover that in all the years he's known her, he has never really 'known' Julia, and starts to uncover the shocking truth about his prospective bride’s past.

Reviews

‘The black Godfather…quite simply, Headley knows what time it is.’

(The Journal on Yardie)

​

‘A book which everyone should read, and soon.’

(The Voice on Yardie)

​

'Crackles with energy...Headley writes with gusto.'

(Metro on Off Duty)

'Written with real skill and wit. A genuine page-turner.'

(Time Out on Off Duty)

'A witty, compelling thriller...Headley has clearly lost none of his unique, defiant voice.'

(The List on Off Duty)

'A raw, powerful thriller...a tightly constructed novel, full of well-drawn, rounded characters, and crackling with authentic, streetwise dialogue that raises it above the standard of the average mass market gangland thriller.'

(Bookseller on Off Duty)

​

'...this is a nicely-shot, -cast and -told period story of black Britain – when so few exist – with a geniality that cuts through some of its bleaker moments.'

(Screen Daily on Yardie film)

​

'Idris Elba has delivered a brilliant debut: brash, yet intimate and highly enjoyable.'

(The Up Coming on Yardie film)