Faces is a very disturbing story about the British mafia. Just before Danny Cadogan’s fourteenth birthday, his father leaves, simply abandoning his family.  When a couple of gangsters show up at the Cadogan door demanding the six thousand dollars that Big Danny owes them as a gambling debt, Danny Boy changes as he resorts to violence to protect his mother, brother, and sister from these hoodlums.  He works hard to support them financially and to get ahead at any cost, with the help and advice of Louie Stein, a felonious older friend who owns the recycling company that Danny works for.

He grows up fast, becoming a rising super-star in the underground hierarchy, never letting an opportunity pass him by...a "Face" by the time he is fifteen. His best friend, Michael Miles, is the brains of Danny's endeavors. Danny Boy Cadogan becomes one of the wealthiest and the most feared men in London, and even rules his own wife and children with fear. Danny is a big man who dispenses terror with fists, iron bars, pipes, hammers...whatever it takes to subdue or kill his rivals, and there is always someone who wants to unseat him, or whom he thinks may have crossed him.

This is a frightening look behind the scenes of the British underworld.  At the beginning, I found Danny to be a sympathetic, likable boy, but that changed throughout the story.  Still, Danny Boy is an unforgettable character. I don't think I liked this book, but I couldn't put it down. The graphic violence and mafia shenanigans, while upsetting, compelled me to keep reading. The story was mesmerizing, with twists and perversions that I didn't see coming.  Due to the prologue, the ending was predictable, but satisfying.