fullybooked2017

DEATH AT SANDOWN VILLA . . . True crime in Leamington Spa (1)

PART ONE

Employment options for young women in the England of the early 1900s were pretty limited, especially from poorer households. Educational opportunities for most would have rudimentary, and many thousands would seek work in domestic service in wealthier households, and hope for a reasonable marriage when they had turned twenty or so.

Such a young lady was Maida Warner. In 1905 her family lived in the village Stockton, between Leamington and Rugby. Her father – like many men in the vicinity was employed at the cement works, which was owned by the Nelson family of Warwick. The 1901 census has the Warners living on Beck’s Lane.

1901 census
After working for a lady in Coventry, 21 year-old Maida took up a position with Mr John Percival Patterson and his wife Lizzie on 10th May. They lived in the rather grand sounding Sandown Villa, on Rugby Road in Leamington. The house showed up in the 1948 Kellys Directory as No. 251 Rugby Road, but that puzzled me, as the present day 251 is obviously a semi built in the 1950s or 60s. Thanks to some excellent detective work by Steve Hawks we found that there was renumbering of the houses at some stage, and what was named Sandown Villa is the modern day No. 269, and to the left of it in the picture was Cliff Cottage, of which more later.

Sandown Villa
Back to the events of May 1905. Later in the month, having seen plenty of the young lady, the Pattersons began to suspect that Maida might be pregnant. In the rather euphemistic words of a newspaper report, they “became suspicious of her condition”. Lizzie Patterson broached the subject but Maida strongly denied that she was expecting. It rather suggests to me that she was, as they say, “of a fuller figure” as had she been just a slip of a thing it must have been glaringly obvious. On 28^th May, Lizzie Patterson again spoke to Maida about the matter, but received the same reply. What happened next was reported fully in the newspapers when Lizzie Patterson (witness) gave evidence in court.

“On the Thursday she did her work as usual, but after tea she complained of a headache and went upstairs. Witness advised her to go for a short walk, but she said she felt too ill. Witness asked her if she wanted anything, and she said no. She went to bed, and just after nine o’clock Witness took her a cup of cocoa. When Witness went into the room she felt sure something was wrong and she asked Warner if she would have a doctor. She declined, but Witness insisted on having a doctor. When she went downstairs she sent for the doctor.

Witness did not hear anything of the girl, and the doctor arrived about 11 o’clock. When the doctor went upstairs the bedroom door was locked and Witness called “Open the door.” Warner replied, “Is the doctor there?” and the doctor then asked her if she was all right. She said “Yes,” and added that she did not want the doctor. She refused to open the door. If she wanted help she would let them know.

Later Witness again went to the door, and Warner then said she was all right. She did not hear anything of her during the night. Next morning Witness sent some breakfast to Warner, and a little later went to her room to see her. She asked her how she was and she said she was very much better. Warner had drunk her tea and had eaten some food. The girl appeared very much better. She remained in bed until Saturday afternoon, but still refused to have the doctor. Witness suggested that she must either see him or go home, and Warner said she would rather home. She walked to the station and went by the 4.10 train.”

time
The railway station – Milverton – was literally just around the corner, and from there Maida could take the train – a twenty minute ride on the old London and North Western Railway – to Napton & Stockton Station.

LNW ∑ Napton and Stockton ∑ Warwks ∑ anon ∑ by 10/1910

As soon as Maida had gone, John and Lizzie Patterson went up to Maida’s room. What they found there would haunt them for many a year.

PART TWO WILL BE AVAILABLE AT 6.00pm
ON SUNDAY 28th FEBRUARY

February 27, 2021 0

MURDER AT THE RITZ . . . Between the covers

Any novel which features – in no particular order – Commander Ian Fleming, King Zog of Albania, a dodgy lawyer called Pentangle Underhill, and a Detective Chief Inspector named The Hon. Edgar Walter Septimus Saxe-Coburg promises to be a great deal of fun, and Murder At The Ritz by Jim Eldridge didn’t disappoint. It is set in London in August 1940, and Ahmet Muhtar Zogolli, better known as King Zog of Albania (left) has been smuggled out of his homeland after its invasion by Mussolini’s Italy, and he has now taken over the entire third floor of London’s Ritz Hotel, complete with various retainers and bodyguards – as well as a tidy sum in gold bullion.

Anyone who has studied the history of Albania will know that it has always been a chaotic place. In the 1920s, while working at the League of Nations, the famous sportsman CB Fry was reputedly offered the throne. For a rather more serious memoir of Albania during WW2, Eight Hours From England (click for the review) by Anthony Quayle is well worth a read, and we all know – thanks to the Taken franchise, starring Liam Neeson, that Albania’s chief export to the rest of the world is organised crome, drug-running, money laundering and people trafficking.

Back to the story, and when a corpse is discovered in one of the King’s suites, Coburg is called in to investigate. The attempt to relieve the Albanian monarch of his treasure sparks off a turf war between two London gangs who, rather like the Krays and the Richardsons in the 1960s, occupy territories ‘norf’ and ‘sarf’ of the river. After several more dead bodies and an entertaining sub-plot featuring Coburg’s romance with Rosa Weeks, a beautiful and talented young singer, there is a dramatic finale involving a shoot-out near the Russian Embassy. This is a highly enjoyable book that occupies the same territory as John Lawton’s Fred Troy novels (click to read more). It is nowhere near as dark and dystopian as those books, but Murder At The Ritz is none the worse for that.

Since 2016 Jim Eldridge has concentrated on writing historical crime fiction for adults. Previously he worked as a scriptwriter and wrote books for children and young adults. As a scriptwriter he had over 250 TV and 250 radio scripts broadcast in the UK and internationally. In 2019 I read, enjoyed and reviewed an earlier book by this writer, and if you click on the title – Murder At The British Museum – you can see what I thought. Murder At The Ritz is published by Allison & Busby and is out now.

February 25, 2021 0

THE ST MICHAEL’S ROAD MURDER . . . The madness of a daughter (part 2)

Louth. February 1950. Gladys Hirschberg is living with her mother Alice Wright at 32 St Michael’s Road (below). 55 year-old Gladys has had an eventful life. She married a soldier, Victor King, in 1916, was widowed the next year, and then went to Rhodesia with a new husband, and took his name, von Hirschberg. Gladys returned to England at the beginning of World War Two and served with the ATS. After a brief return to Rhodesia, she came back to Louth in 1946.

On the morning of Sunday 19th February, Mrs Lena Gibson who was a neighbour of Gladys and her mother answered a frantic knocking on her door to find Gladys, shaking and white faced. Gladys said to Lena:
“You had better come and see. I have killed my mother. I hit her on the head with a hammer.”
Entering No.32, Lena was horrified to see Alice Wright unconscious on the sofa, with a dreadful head wound.

An ambulance was summoned and the police came and took Gladys into custody, She was formally charged with attempting to kill her mother. The senior officer who read the charge was none other than Superintendent George Todd (above), Gladys Hirschberg’s co-star in the Louth Playgoer’s production of The Winslow Boy in April the previous year.

Alice Wright never recovered consciousness and died two days later, so when Gladys Hirschberg appeared at Louth Magistrates Court on 21st February, the charge was murder. After another hearing on 11th March, Gladys was committed for trial at Lincoln Assizes in June.

It seems that Gladys was in such a bad way that she was sent to Winson Green prison in Birmingham, because it had a secure mental unit, and it was from there that she came to trial at Lincoln on Tuesday 6th June. The presiding judge was George Lynskey.

This is the newspaper report of proceedings:

“In court she wore a black coat and a grey jumper. She looked pale but seemed composed. She pleaded not guilty in a clear voice. While the Jury was sworn in she stood with bowed head and downcast eyes between two women prison officers. The courtroom was crowded, the majority there being women.

Hirschberg was defended by Mr. R. C. Vaughan. K.C.. and Mr. W. K Carter. Mr S.L.Elborne, prosecuting, said that Hirschberg had been living in Rodesia and had returned to England to look after her mother. Later, after living at home and then working in London, she had an offer of another job in Rhodesia, and her mother was going with her. The home and furniture were to be sold. Mrs Wright was over 80, and apparently the accused thought she was doing right by moving her to Rhodesia.

Hirschberg then became more troubled about the situation, and February 19^th she told a neighbour that she had hit her mother on the head with a hammer and had killed her. Mrs Wright was found with severe head injuries and died later in hospital.

The neighbour, Lena Marjorie Gibson said Hirschberg had worried about taking her mother to Rhodesia and felt she was taking away her security by selling the house. Hirschberg had been widowed in the first war, married a Belgian and had said this marriage was unhappy. She had sought refuge in Army work during the war and became a junior commander in the ATS.

Mrs. Gibson described how Hirschberg became more worried, had financial worries when her husband stopped her allowance, and felt she was a failure and her life futile.

She had fits of depression and on one occasion was seen crouching in an animal attitude with staring eyes and twitching face.

“I was afraid she was no longer sane.” said Mrs. Gibson. She had also said herself she felt her mind was going. In statements to the police Hirschberg was alleged to have said that her mental state made her want to escape from her responsibilities. She tried to gas herself, and then decided it would be best if they both “went out” because some aspects of her life had been a failure.

“Quite suddenly a cloud came over me and 1 felt I must end it all for both,” Something in her brain told her she must do it but only part of her knew what she was doing with the hammer. She had hit herself on the head with the hammer. The last few weeks had been a terrible effort as if her hands and brain had not co-operated without terrific effort.

Called for the defence, Dr J Humphreys of Birmingham prison said Hirschberg considered herself a failure in her job in London and had a feeling of guilt that her friends were having to do things for her mother which she felt she should have been doing. She was suffering from an acute sense of chronic depression which was a mental disease. While in prison,said the doctor, Hirschberg swallowed five needles because she said she wanted to suffer physical pain instead of the anguish she was feeling.

She had told him she was an outcast and dare not approach God in prayer – which was born out by the fact that she refused to go to the prison chapel or see the chaplain.

When she committed the act she would not know that what she was doing was wrong. Evidence that she was suffering from a mental disease was also given by Dr. M. Sim, a psychiatrist at a Birmingham hospital.“

The prosecution didn’t challenge the assertion that Gladys Hirschberg did murder her mother whie insane, and she was sentenced to be detained “at Her Majesty’s Pleasure.”

There is a poignant postscript to this sad tale. A few years later, Messrs Falkner & Co, Solicitors, of 17 Cornmarket, Louth acted for Gladys Hirschberg as she applied to change her surname to King. This was of, course, in remembrance of Victor Algernon Robert King, her young husband who had perished in Flanders thirty seven years earlier. In this legal claim, her address was given as Crowthorne, Berkshire, which is home to the secure mental hospital known as Broadmoor.

February 21, 2021 0

THE ST MICHAEL’S ROAD MURDER . . . The madness of a daughter (part 1)

Gladys Wright was born in Louth in 1894. Her father, Edward Wright was a schoolmaster, and the census of 1911 has the family living at Egmont – No. 4 South Street, Louth. Edward Wright went on to become Headmaster of St Michael’s School, where his wife Alice also taught.

In December1916, Gladys married a young man named Victor King, in Richmond, Surrey. Their marriage was to be short lived, however. Victor was Second Lieutenant in The Machine Gun Corps, and on 29th September, he was killed during the Third Battle of Ypres, better known perhaps as the Battle of Paschendaele. His name is one of 34,000 others inscribed on the Tyne Cot Memorial to the Missing, which indicates that if he was given a battlefield burial, his grave was later lost. A grimmer option is that his body was simply destroyed by shellfire.

Like so many other young widows, Gladys had the rest of her life to live, and at some point between the end of the Great War and the beginning of World War Two, she met and married a man called von Hirschberg. It seems that they tried to begin a new life in what was then Rhodesia, where the von Hirschberg family had lived for decades. Whatever happened to the marriage was never recorded publicly, but by World War Two, Gladys was back in England and serving in the Auxiliary Territorial Service – the ATS – a volunteer unit for women. After the war, the ATS became the WRAC, but Gladys chose not to continue with service life and, after another brief spell in Rhodesia, returned to Louth to live with her widowed mother Alice in her house in St Michael’s Road.

Gladys, now in her 50s, was a keen amateur actress and a member of the Louth Playgoers group. The only surviving photograph of her dates from 1949, when she played the role of Mrs Winslow in Terence Rattigan’s 1946 play, The Winslow Boy. One of the strange ironies of this story is that the gentleman playing Mr Winslow in the play was George Todd. When he wasn’t learning his lines, Todd was better known as Superintendent Todd of Louth police. He and his co-star were to meet again a year later in rather different circumstances.

Part two of this story will go live at 6.00pm on Sunday 21st February

February 20, 2021 0

WHAT WILL BURN . . . Between the covers

As the title suggests, What Will Burn is all about fire. It begins with an old woman, badly beaten and then set alight. There are passages which hark back to the late sixteenth century, and describe the dreadful end of women who were accused of witchcraft and burnt at the stake. A man apparently spontaneously combusts as he sits in his basement flat. It ends with a grim parallel to those scenes when one of the book’s main characters, suffers a similar fate in a grim parody of those historical executions.

So, what has all this to do with James Oswald’s Edinburgh copper, Detective Chief Inspector Tony McLean? Or, to be more accurate, Detective Inspector McLean, as he returns to duty busted down a rank after a lengthy investigation into misconduct.

His ‘welcome back Tony” case is that of the agonising death of Cecily Slater, an elderly member of an aristocratic family, who has lived alone in a crumbling cottage in the woods above Edinburgh. Her charred remains have gone unnoticed for some time, until an estate worker who runs the odd errand for the old woman makes a grisly discovery.

McLean also becomes involved with a controversial campaign called Dad’s Army. They are not the avuncular dodderers from Walmington-on-Sea, but a group of embittered men who, for one reason or another, have been denied access to their children. They are led – and empowered – by a lawyer called Tommy Fielding, a man who who has a seemingly pathological hatred of women, and is undeterred by the fact that many of his clients have been separated from their children due to allegations of serious sexual abuse.

All good police procedural series need a repertory company of regular characters, and the Tony McLean books are no exception. There’s Grumpy Bob, guardian of the cold case records down in the basement, Detective Constable Janie Harrison – now Acting Detective Sergeant Harrison, the lugubrious Detective Constable ‘Lofty’ Blane. McLean himself is a fascinating character. Thanks to a legacy, he has the luxury of being financially independent of his job, but loves the work. He also has the mixed blessing of being someone who is sensitive to things paranormal, and beyond the ken of the Police Scotland operational handbook. Away from the station, there is the strange character of Madame Rose, a transexual psychic who can always be relied upon to provide a sense of things “not dreamt of in our philosophy”.Last but not least, there is Mrs McCutcheon’s cat. We never see the owner, but the moggie is a permanent resident in McLean’s house.

There is a new member of the cast in this novel, in the person of Chief Superintendent Gail Elmwood, freshly signed from the Metropolitan Police to head up Tony’s team. Let’s just say that she is not your conventional senior police officer.

As the reviewers’ cliché has it, the body count gets higher. Readers expecting a conventional solution to the criminal activity in What Will Burn will search in vain. James Oswald takes this book to a new level of dark imaginings, intrigue, human venality and sinister happenings which, if they don’t scare you, it perhaps means that you are in a persistent vegetative state. What Will Burn is published by Wildfire, and is out today, 18th February.

I am a confirmed and long-standing fan of the Tony McLean series. To read reviews of earlier novels, click here.

February 17, 2021 0

THE SANATORIUM . . . Between the covers

Elin Warner is an English police officer. We meet her and boyfriend Will as they ride in an over-crowded car on a funicular railway. They are travelling to Le Sommet, a luxury hotel high in the Swiss Alps, where Erin’s brother Isaac and his girlfriend Laure are about to celebrate their engagement. We soon learn a few background details. Elin has been on sick leave for many months, after a serious incident. Her mother has just died of cancer, and she and Isaac have been estranged for many years.

Le Sommet has a distinctive history, as it is a former sanatorium, where tuberculosis victims were sent in pre-vaccine days in the hope that the clean mountain air would ease their suffering. Its transformation into a five star holiday destination was masterminded by a prestigious firm of Swiss architects, one of whom mysteriously disappeared at the site in the early days of the project. No trace of him has ever been found.

Pretty much as soon as Elin and Will arrive, a fierce snow storm cuts off Le Sommet from the rest of the world, and they wake after their first night in the hotel to the news that Laure has disappeared.

After a few chapters, I pictured Le Sommet as a rather diabolical cross between The Overlook Hotel where Jack and Wendy Torrance spent such an eventful winter (“Here comes Johnny….!“) and the Hotel California (“You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave…“)

Unlike the residents of the hotel, we know that there is someone out there, a killer who has an agenda. Revenge, maybe? Or perhaps a psycho with neither rhyme nor reason, other than their insanity?

There is another undertow tugging at us as we move through the chapters, and it is Elin’s suspicion that Isaac had something to do with the death of her younger brother Sam years earlier. The tragedy was deemed to be accidental, but what if the unthinkable had happened, and it was a case of fraternal jealousy taken a step too far?

When the body count starts to rise, Elin’s professional training kicks in and, after phoning the local police for permission, she takes charge of the investigation. With no access to forensic support or police databases, she has to make do with what she has – basically her own instincts as a copper. She suspects that whatever is motivating the killer lies in the history of the hotel. Sarah Pearse (right) exploits the conventions of the locked-down/cut-off-from-the-outside-world thriller for all she is worth, and we have hidden passage ways, disused tunnels, murderers in sinister masks, and the general sense that most of the key figures in the plot are hiding secrets of one sort or another.

This is a convincing debut novel, and the author doesn’t give us a moment’s downtime in terms of tension. If there is such a thing as Anxiety Porn, then The Sanatorium is a fine example of the genre. Sarah Pearse also leaves us with an Epilogue which takes one of the assumptions made by Elin – and us readers – and turns it on its head.

The novel came out as a Kindle on 4th February (Transworld Digital) and will be available as a Bantam Press hardback from 18th February. You can find out more about the author by clicking this link.

February 13, 2021 0

SERPENTINE . . . Between the covers

No-one could ever accuse Jonathan Kellerman of not being industrious. It seems like only the other day that I reviewed The Museum of Desire (it was 9th November last year, in fact), but now Dr Alex Delaware and Milo Sturgis are back again in the hills and canyons of LA, solving another mystery. A quick bio. for readers new to the series. Delaware is a practicing child psychologist who often (this is the 36th book in the series) helps LAPD detective Milo Sturgis with cases. Delware lives with a woman who repairs stringed instruments, while Sturgis has a partner, and has come through the dark years when being gay was something of a no-no in police ranks. The plot is as wonderfully convoluted and labyrinthine as ever. So (takes a deep breath), here goes.

Sturgis has reluctantly taken on the coldest of cold cases. His orders have come down from some very well-connected people in the political and civic life of LA, and so he has been pulled off all other work. The mystery? What is the truth behind the death of a woman decades earlier, found in the wreckage of her burnt out Cadillac at the bottom of a canyon bordering Mulholland Drive? Careless driving? Might have been, were it not for the fact that she had also been shot in the head.

The woman pulling the strings is Ellie Barker, a millionaire former businesswoman, and daughter of Dorothy Swoboda the lady in the canyon. She was only three at the time, has no recollection of her mother, and never knew her natural father, having been brought up by her stepfather, Stanley Barker.

Anton Des Barres was a wealthy industrialist who made his money manufacturing high quality surgical equipment. After his second wife died, he became something of a womaniser, inviting young women back to his mansion where he and his children still lived. Delaware and Sturgis learn that Dorothy was one of Des Barres’s ‘harem’. They also discover a strange coincidence. Arlette Des Barres, the man’s second wife died after a fall from her horse in the rugged country near where Dorothy died. Stanley Barker was found dead, possibly as a result of a fall, in the same area.

Historic deaths are one thing, but when Ellie Barker’s boyfriend is shot, Delaware and Sturgis are faced with the uncomfortable thought that whatever the truth behind Dorothy’s murder, it is far from being dead and buried. It is alive and well, and extremely dangerous.

The title of the book refers to a piece of jewellery, which Delaware and Sturgis eventually discover is deeply significant. Actually, the pair make many assumptions about the case, and most of them prove to be wrong, which only adds to the credibility as investigators. They are not super-sleuths; they are mortal, fallible – and consequently completely convincing. It is only in the final pages that they – and we – learn the truth about the life and death of the woman who called herself Dorothy Swoboda, and it is dark stuff indeed.

Cynics might turn up their noses at this book and dismiss it as “formula fiction”. Fair enough, and, as the saying goes, “opinions are like (insert anatomical detail) – everyone has one”. What such critics find hard to cope with, I suggest, is that writers like Kellerman are rather like alchemists, in that they take base metal – cops, bad guys, slick dialogue, zooming around in cars, and turn it into gold – conviction, reading pleasure, empathy with the characters and a sense of “can’t wait for the next novel“. That is pretty impressive, at least in my book.

Serpentine is published by Century, and is out now.

February 8, 2021 1

THE POSTMAN DELIVERS . . . Katz, Perks & Spain

I haven’t done a ‘Postman Delivers’ feature for ages, mainly because during our annus horibilis of 2020, books have come in dribs and drabs. Maybe today’s “thump, thump, thump” of books hitting the doormat are a sign of better things to come, in all sorts of ways. Let’s hope so.

A GOOD MAN by Ani Katz

Fans of dark domestic drama should love this. The ‘good man’ in question is Thomas Martin. He was the perfect family man, husband, father son and brother. He had a dream job and a lovely home. But when disaster strikes, and dreadful suffering is inflicted on those he loves, he is forced to conduct the most forensic examination of his own personality, motivation and actions. Ani Katz is a writer, photographer and teacher. She was born and raised on the south shore of Long Island, and holds a MFA in photography from Columbia College, Chicago, and a BA from Yale. She lives in Brooklyn. A Good Man is published by Windmill/Penguin Random House. It came out in hardback in January last year and the paperback will be out on 11th February.

THE WHISPERS by Heidi Perks

I reviewed – and loved – an earlier Heidi Perks novel back in 2019, when Come Back For Me was published. Her latest novel tells the story of Anna Robinson, a woman with the perfect family, and everything in the world going for her. One night she goes out to have some fun with four old friends. And never returns. Why would she do this? What has happened to her? Are the rumours at school gates true?

Heidi Perks lives by the sea in Bournemouth with her husband and two children.She graduated from Bournemouth University with a BA (Hons) in Retail Management, and then enjoyed a career in Marketing before leaving in 2012 to focus on both bringing up her family and writing. The Whispers is published by Cornerstone Digital/Century and will be available from 18th March as a KIndle, and 15th April in paperback and hardback.

THE PERFECT LIE by Jo Spain

Jo Spain is, in my opinion, one of the most gifted writers we have. She is based in Dublin, and not content with creating a hugely popular police procedural series featuring Detective Tom Reynolds, she writes scripts and screenplays for television and cinema, and also managed to write superb standalone thrillers. The Perfect Lie belongs to the latter category, but moves the action from Ireland to America’s east coast. Erin Kennedy lives in Newport, Long Island with her detective husband Danny. Her idyllic life turns into a nightmare when he jumps to his death from their fourth-floor apartment.

In the traumatic months that follow his death, Erin learns that Danny was not the ‘regular guy’ everyone thought he was. If those revelations weren’t bad enough, she is then arrested and charged with his murder. Her previous life has morphed into something spectacularly dreadful – The Perfect Lie. Click this link to learn more about Jo Spain and her books.The Perfect Lie is published by Quercus and will be available in all formats from 13th May.

February 6, 2021 0

THE NIGHT HAWKS . . . Between the covers

Elly Griffiths, (left) whose real name is Domenica de Rosa, has created an endearing heroine in the person of Ruth Galloway, an English archaeologist who, over the course of a dozen novels, has managed to find herself at the centre of murder mysteries where the corpses are considerably more recent than the ones she normally excavates. She is a senior lecturer at the fictional University of North Norfolk, and the novels are set in and around the north and west of Norfolk. Griffiths uses real locations like King’s Lynn, Blakeney and Sheringham, and has also constructed a reliably entertaining cast of supporting players, principally Ruth’s once-upon-a-time lover, a refreshingly old fashioned married police detective called Harry Nelson. They have a child, Kate, who lives with Ruth, while Harry remains more-or-less happily married to Michelle, with whom he also has children.

In the thirteenth book in the series, The Night Hawks, we have the characters who long time readers of the series will recognise, including the middle aged druid who calls himself Cathbad. His real name is Michael Malone, but he can usually be relied upon to bring to bring a touch of the supernatural – imagined or otherwise – to the proceedings. The Night Hawks in this tale aren’t remotely sinister, despite their name. They are group of men whose hobby is traversing the ancient Norfolk landscape with their metal detectors, searching for buried artifacts. They operate at night, because it is quieter and they are less likely to be disturbed.

They get the story started with a classic Elly Griffiths trope – the finding of a Bronze Age hoard, including an ancient skeleton, alongside a body that is much more recently deceased. While the older gentleman can wait his turn to be studied and catalogued, the young man’s body is whisked off to King’s Lynn for the attention of the police pathologist.

Shortly after the grim discovery, the police are called to a remote farmhouse a few miles inland, where there are reports of gunshots being heard. This time, there is no doubt about the identity or the cause of death of two dead people found inside Black Dog Farmhouse. Dr Douglas Noakes and his wife Linda are dead from gunshot wounds, and it appears to be a clear case of murder-suicide. This clear cut diagnosis becomes rather more tenuous when questions are raised about firearms technicalities, despite an apparent suicide note being found.

The plot becomes pleasantly complicated from this point on. The late Dr and Mrs Noakes had two children, from whom they had become estranged, but was the separation bitter enough to provoke murder? Noakes was not a GP, but a research scientist, and it seems that he had been working with a Cambridge lab developing vaccines. Was this why one of the rooms at Black Dog Farmhouse was kitted out like a doctor’s surgery, complete with bed? The dead young man – the twentieth century one – is eventually identified as Jem Taylor, a 25 year-old from Cromer, who had only recently been released from prison.

There is another murder. This time the victim is a member of The Night Hawks, a retired teacher with connections to several of the people in the story. He has been battered over the head with a lump of rock, and his death further complicates matters.

Elly Griffiths has great fun by introducing some ‘spookery’ by way of a local legend – that of Black Shuck. Tales of a ghostly hellhound are spread far and wide through English folklore, and this Norfolk version is equally menacing. Like all literary amateur sleuths, Ruth Galloway’s involvement with active police investigations is pretty implausible, but delightfully so. The odd relationship between Ruth, Harry Nelson and his wife makes for an intriguing read, and added to the impeccably researched location details, The Night Hawks provides a thoroughly enjoyable and gripping few hours of entertainment. The book is published by Quercus and will be out on 4th February.

February 3, 2021 1