MJ Porter

THE BARRAGE BODY . . . Between the covers

It is December, 1944, and we are in the Birmingham suburb of Erdington. Further afield, and quite unknown to both the residents of Erdington and the American soldiers shivering in their foxholes in the Ardennes Forest, Hitler is about to launch his last desperate gamble in what would come to be known as the Battle of The Bulge. In Erdington, war-wise, things are relatively quiet, but a barrage balloon unit, staffed by young women of that WAAF, is parked up at the Dunlop rubber factory, commonly known as Fort Dunlop.

It is here that Detective Chief Inspector Sam Mason is summoned, initially to investigate what appears to be a case of malicious communications, but things escalate rapidly. First it seems that someone has stolen vital blueprints for new and improved tyres for Lancaster bombers, and then, a body is discovered tethered to a barrage balloon which has unaccountably broken free.

Mason has a veritable 2000 piece jigsaw to put together. So many questions. Who was the man found dead in the barrage balloon cables? Why was jack-the-lad teenager Simon Samuels found in a similar position? What is the connection to Samuels’ father, a guard at a Staffordshire POW camp. Painstakingly, Mason and his redoubtable Sergeant O’Rourke have to move the pieces one by one until they begin to make a recognisable picture.

Sam Mason is quite unlike most British coppers in contemporary CriFi, partly because of the era in which was working. Because it is the 1940s we are quite content for him to rather stolid, happily married, prone to the aches and pains of late middle age. His deceptively gentle and slow-moving approach masks a sharp mind and a critical eye for detail. Here, he patiently absorbs the facts of a strange case, and delivers the goods.

This is the fourth Erdington Mystery. I enjoyed and reviewed the first of them, The Custard Corpses. The series couldn’t be more different from the books for which Porter is, perhaps, better known – dramatic swords, shields and helmets dramas from Saxon and Norman times. The books have one thing in common, however, and that is the setting – Mercia, the ancient kingdom we would now call The Midlands where, incidentally, Porter was born and brought up. The Barrage Body is original, inventive, nostalgic, absorbing, and I loved it. Published by MJ Publishing, it is available now.

December 17, 2025 0

THE FEAR INDEX by Robert Harris

Harris is best-known for his best-selling historical novels such as Pompeii, Enigma, Fatherland and Munich, but here he is bang up to date with a thriller set in the cut-throat world of modern financial markets, where fortunes can be made and destroyed with a keystroke. Alex Hoffmann has developed an algorithm for playing the financial markets that generates billions of pounds – and feeds on one essential aspect of human nature – the tendency to panic. When his system is threatened by an intruder who breaches the elaborate security of his lakeside home, his life becomes a living nightmare of violence and paranoia. This is a new Penguin edition of the novel that originally came out in 2011, and is a tie-in with a forthcoming Sky mini-series.

WHAT HIS WIFE KNEW by Jo Jakeman

Domestic Noir seems to be the go-to genre these days, and this looks as though it ticks all those particular boxes. Beth’s husband Oscar has disappeared after leaving a scribbled note – which appears to be an apology for something. As she tries to unravel the mystery of his disappearance – and the mysterious apology – she becomes immersed in a nightmare of recrimination, revenge and betrayal. Jo Jakeman was born in Cyprus and worked for many years in the City of London before moving to Cornwall with her husband and twin boys. What His Wife Knew is published by Vintage, and will be available from 17th February

THE RISING TIDE by Sam Lloyd

The story centres on Lucy, one of those women crime writers love to put at the heart of their stories. She has the lot: a beautiful home high on the clifftops, a devoted husband and two beloved children. Then one morning, tit all goes pear-shaped. Their family yacht is recovered, abandoned far out at sea. Lucy’s husband is nowhere to be found and as the seconds tick by, she begins to wonder – what if he was the one who took the boat? And if so, where is he now? As a violent storm frustrates the rescue operation, Lucy pieces together what happened onboard. Then she makes a fresh discovery and it is one which makes a nightmare into a reality.

Sam Lloyd grew up in Hampshire, but now lives in Surrey with his wife, three young sons and a dog that likes to howl. His debut thriller, The Memory Wood, was published in 2020. Out on 17th February, The Rising Tide is published by Penguin.

SHAKING HANDS WITH THE DEVIL by Bryan J Mason

Set in the dying days of Margaret Thatcher’s premiership, this black – and bleakly funny – novel tells the tale of a Dennis Nilsen-like character who enjoys dismembering young men, and DCI Dave Hicks, a larger than life policeman determined to catch him. The killer – Clifton Gentle, DCI Hicks – and the next intended victim are on a collision course that Mason turns into a strange mixture of noir and slapstick.
This is from Vanguard Press and is available now

ALL THAT LIVES by James Oswald

I am a huge fan of the Inspector Tony McLean novels by James Oswald. I love the way that there is a often a subtle hint of the supernatural about these stories, and there is usually some connection with historical events, which draws me in like a magnet. In this case, an archaeological dig at the old South Leith parish kirkyard has turned up a mysterious body dating from around seven hundred years ago. Some suspect that this gruesome discovery is a sacrifice, placed there for a specific purpose. Then a second body is unearthed. This victim went missing only thirty years ago – but the similarities between her death and the ancient woman’s suggest something even more disturbing.

Drawn into the investigation, Inspector McLean finds himself torn between a worrying trend of violent drug-related deaths and uncovering what truly connects these bodies. When a third body is discovered, and too close for comfort, he begins to suspect dark purpose at play – and that whoever put them there is far from finished. Published by Wildfire, this will be out on 17th February

THE AUTOMOBILE ASSASSINATION by MJ Porter

I read, reviewed – and thoroughly enjoyed – the first book in this series, The Custard Corpses, and so I was delighted to see that Chief Inspector Mason of Birmingham’s Erdington Police is once more prevailed upon to solve a seemingly impossible case. Called to the local mortuary where a man’s body lies, shockingly bent double and lacking any form of identification, Mason and his assistant O’Rourke find themselves at Castle Bromwich aerodrome seeking answers that seem out of reach to them. The men and women of the royal air force stationed there are their prime suspects. Or are they? Was the man a spy, killed on the orders of some higher authority, or is the place his body was found irrelevant? And why do none of the men and women at the aerodrome recognise the dead man? From MJ Publishing, this is available now.

THE CUSTARD CORPSES . . . Between the covers

Sometimes a book comes along with very little by way of advanced publicity or hype, and it hits the sweet spot right away. One such is The Custard Corpses by MJ Porter. Strangely-named it might be but the reason for the title becomes more obvious - and appropriate - the more one reads. A few sentences in, and I was hooked. It ticks several of my favourite boxes - WW2 historical, police procedural, likeable and thoroughly decent English copper, the West Midlands and a plot which is inventive without being implausible.

We are in the Birmingham district of Erdington. It is 1943 and Great War veteran Sam Mason is a uniformed Chief Inspector at the local nick. He is not yet on the downward slope heading for retirement, but he is like Tennyson's Ulysses:

“Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”

Mason is a man given to reflection, and a case from his early career still troubles him. On 30th September 1923, a boy’s body was found near the local church hall. Robert McFarlane had been missing for three days, his widowed mother frantic with anxiety. Mason remembers the corpse vividly. It was almost as if the lad was just sleeping. The cause of death? Totally improbably the boy drowned. But where? And why was his body so artfully posed, waiting to be found?

Mason and his then boss, Chief Inspector Fullerton, had never solved the crime, and Mrs McFarlane died without knowing the whys and wherefores of her son’s death. When Mason learns that there had been a similar case, a couple of years later, he is close to despair that it hadn’t come to light earlier. He realises that the fault was theirs. They hadn’t circulated the strange details of Robert’s death as widely as they should.

Attempting to make amends, albeit two decades too late, he has a circular drawn up, and sent to the police forces across England, Scotland and Wales. To his dismay, a succession of unsolved killings come to light; the dead youngsters are of different ages, but there is one bizarre common factor – the bodies have been posed as if in some kind of sporting action. Mason is given permission to devote his energies to this macabre series of killings, and with the resourceful Constable O’Rourke, he sets up an incident room, and begins to receive case notes and crime scene photographs from places as far apart as Inverness, Weston, Conway and Berwick.

One evening, after he has taken images and documents home with him, his wife Annie makes a startling discovery. Like nearly two million other readers across the country, she is a great fan of the magazine Picture Post, and while thumbing through a recent copy she notices that the sporting youngster drawn in an advertisement for a well-known brand of custard is posed in a way that has a chilling resemblance to the way one of the victims that Sam is investigating.

At this point, the investigation sprouts wings and takes flight and, in a journey that takes them across England, Mason and O’Rourke eventually uncover a tale of horror and obsession that chills their blood. MJ Porter has written a series of historical and fantasy novels, mostly set in what we call The Dark Ages – Vikings, Goths and those sorts of chaps. That doesn’t tend to be ‘my thing’ but, my goodness, Porter is a good writer. The Custard Corpses goes straight onto my early shortlist for Book of The Year, and I do hope that he can tear himself away from his tales of ravens, rape, swords and general pillage to bring us another novel featuring Sam Mason. The Custard Corpses is out now.