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I've been meaning to get to this book for a while, and I'm kicking myself it's taken so long to pick it up.  Set in London during WWII, it's a two threaded story built around two characters.  One a happily married (male) policeman going about his job, investigating suspicious activities in the middle of the bombing raids of WWII.  The other thread is set in the same location, and same time, but has an unhappily married female protagonist involved in the war effort, working in the intelligence side of the services.  It's really very enjoyable so far (leaving aside a couple of lingering worries about the restaurant meals they seem to have been able to indulge in, right in the middle of the war).

From the Blurb:

London, June 1940.  When the body of silent screen star Mabel Morgan is found impaled on railings in Fitzrovia, the coroner rules her death as suicide, but DI Ted Stratton of the CID is not convinced. 

MI5 agent Diana Calthrop, working with senior official Sir Neville Apse, is leading a covert operation when she discovers that her boss is involved in espionage.

Opening Lines:

A child saw her first.

June 1940:  Fitzrovia:  five o'clock, and the sky overcast.  The boy, six years old, had been running half-heartedly up and down the empty street, pretending to be an aeroplane, but it wasn't much good without the others.  He'd been delighted when his mother came to take him away from the farm, with its pig-faced owner and the huge smelly animals that still chased him, snorting and steaming, through nightmares.

BOOK DETAILS
BOOK INFORMATION
Author
ISBN
9780752876245
Year of Publication
Series
Book Number (in series)
1
BLURB

London, June 1940.  When the body of silent screen star Mabel Morgan is found impaled on railings in Fitrovia, the coroner rules her death as suicide, but DI Ted Stratton of the CID is not convinced.  Despite opposition from his superiors, he starts asking questions and it becomes clear that Morgan's fatal fall from a high window may have been the work of one of Soho's most notorious gangsters.

MI5 Agent Diana Calthrop, working with senior official Sir Neville Apse, is leading a covert operation when she discovers that her boss is involved in espionage.  She must treat carefully - Apse is a powerful man and she can't risk threatening the reputation of the Secret Service.  Only when Stratton's path crosses Diana's do they start to uncover the truth - that the intrigues of the Secret Service are alarmingly similar to the machinations of war-torn London's underworld.

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Submitted by Karen on Tue, 28/10/2008 - 07:15 pm