When a dancing girl with all the wrong connections is found murdered in a London alley, life gets complicated for disgraced Great War hero Nick Valentine, not least because his name is scrawled on a scrap of paper in her pocket.
Unwillingly drawn into a web of espionage and crime in the underbelly of 1930’s London, Nick soon discovers that who killed her may be less important than why. With British Intelligence leaning on Nick to use his underworld connections to investigate the girl’s killing, it soon becomes clear that there’s more to the murder than meets the eye.
Nick finds himself at odds not just with the authorities, but on the wrong side of Soho’s gangland bosses and pursued by a foreign spy ring. Trawling Fitzrovia and Soho’s demi-monde of clubs, cabarets and pubs for answers, Nick realises that the stakes go beyond national security, and that no one can be trusted.
As the case draws to an increasingly bloody conclusion, Nick is left to tie up the loose ends at a terrible personal cost.
“A gritty Noir tale in black and white with art deco lounges and smoke-filled bars. Completely engrossing, with surprise twists.”
“A good, old-fashioned hard-boiled thriller. And I mean that in a truly complimentary way. Davis’s London is dirty and seedy and the characters are likewise. In Nick Valentine, we have hero with the flaws of the old legends, Marlow, Spade and Hammer, but with adventure that is as fresh and exciting as it is convoluted and complex.”
“A rattling good yarn! Spies, murders, double crosses, gangsters, beautiful but, morally flawed women, sexy but cynical (and possibly sociopathic) men. This had the lot AND was set in a between the wars Soho that is instantly recognisable.”
“A hell of a rollercoaster-thrilling-ride through London’s dark sites. I like the atmosphere and the action and the hero and the girls and the bad guys and the paranoia.”
