The jagged blast of high explosives rips though 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 then a German bomb obliterates all evidence.

Villiars is not a popular man, he is both powerful and feared.  As the sirens wail, the detective must start matching motive to opportunity – and it doesn’t help when his poss foists an intrusive American journalist on him.

Jago soon discovers the dead man held many secrets, some reaching back to World War 1.  A lot of people wished Villiars dead – and an air raid is a good time to conceal a murder.

Direct Hit is the first in an atmospheric new crime series set in London during the Blitz.

“Compelling – with a twist of nostalgia for a lost London.” Andy Martin, author of Reacher 20:  Lee Child and the Making of Make Me.

The Author, Mike Hollow, studied languages at Cambridge.  After working for the BBC and Tearfund, Mike became a freelance writer and editor.  A popular poet, his work has been widely performed and published.