Renegades by Shaun Hutson

Renegades
by Shaun Hutson
1991 Time Warner

Sean Doyle is a cop on the anti-terror squad who plays by his own rules on the hunt for IRA terrorists. David and Laura Callahan are decadent arms dealers who have discovered a stained glass window commissioned by Gilles de Rais which holds the key to eternal life. These two storylines run into each other in a gory bloodbath...eventually.

Doyle is the most absurd renegade cop in literary history, a pure Matthew Holness character, written straight but with enough self awareness that Hutson had to know how silly the whole thing was, but still fun for the ride.

The Dirty Harry meets Hellraiser premise never really takes off, largely because the two ends don't meet until the end, futz around for a few dozen pages, then fizzles out. Not much comes out of the Giles De Rais angle - a demon pops up, gets shot, and disappears, going down easier than most of the terrorists.

Probably fine on it's own merits, but hurt by the lost potential. Cut this in half and ramp up the horror elements and this could have been the greatest story put to page.

Available from Amazon