A wonderfully uncomplicated and somehow charming read about a murder investigation during the Second World War. This isn't a gore-fest, even though death is afoot and there are a sack full of motivations for murder. Jago, ‘The Blitz Detective’ is engaging, reliable and hiding hurts from the previous war, his young side kick is wet behind the ears and keen as mustard. Not only are you in the middle of an interesting inquiry, you can literally wander the streets of the East End during the Blitz; you can hear the bombers flying in formation overhead, feel the fear of not having adequate shelter and see the ragged outlines of buildings smashed to smithereens. A worthy new Detective Inspector is on patrol, you want him by your side and on your side as you take a step back in time. ~ Liz Robinson
The jagged blast of high explosives rips through the evening air. In the sky over East London the searchlights criss-cross in search of the enemy. On the first night of the Blitz, a corpse is discovered in a van in the back streets of West Ham. Detective Inspector John Jago recognizes the dead man as local Justice of the Peace Charles Villiers. But a German bomb obliterates all evidence. Villiers was not a popular man, both powerful and feared. As the sirens wail, the detective must start matching motive to opportunity - and it doesn't help when his boss foists an intrusive American journalist on him. Jago soon discovers the dead man held many secrets, some reaching back to World War I. A lot of people wished Villiers dead - and an air raid is a good time to conceal a murder.
Mike Hollow was born in 1953 in the Essex County Borough of West Ham and spent his early years in Romford. After studying Russian and French at Cambridge University he worked for the BBC for sixteen years and then the international development agency Tearfund for eleven before going freelance as a writer and editor in 2002. He lives in Hampshire with his wife Margaret and has two grown-up children who live in London. Nowadays he earns his living translating Russian in his cellar and spends the rest of his time writing stories about Detective Inspector John Jago, the Blitz Detective. The first novel, Direct Hit, was published in 2015, and Fifth Column is the second in the series.
