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.