On a freezing London night in 1944, Rosa Novak is brutally murdered during a blackout. Scotland Yard suspects the young Polish refugee was the victim of a random act of violence and might have dropped the case if former police investigator John Madden hadn’t been her employer. Madden feels he owes it to Rosa to find her killer and pushes the investigation, uncovering her connection to a murdered Parisian furrier, a member of the Resistance, and a stolen cache of diamonds.

Delivering the atmospheric writing and compelling characters that have already established Rennie Airth as a master of suspense as well as style, this long-awaited third instalment in the John Madden series is historical crime writing at its best.

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‘SHE WAS MURDERED all right, sir. There’s no doubt of that. A possible strangulation

That is the start of a lovely investigative narrative where a guy called John Madden is the smart detective trying to solve a murder in the final throws of the second world war. Sirens and bombs going off and a murderer on the loose, thinking they could cover their tracks just when people are dying either way from the war or starvation or collapsing buildings.

There is a lot of exposition and the atmospheric heaviness of the war is floating in every other sentence. I think that’s why I probably struggled a little to read this one. There’s a lot of dialogue and the writing is a bit stale. There’s no particular voice I’m hearing and all characters started blending into one after one point. The descriptions of what the detective is doing is pure drudgery. I suppose the following block could have been done a bit better other than have word vomit on page.

Back in the corridor he stopped in the hall to check the front door. It was locked, but he noticed it also had a bolt higher up and he slid that into its slot. The light on the landing above had been switched on and he could hear Bess’s voice urging Eva to hurry. His own destination was now the room at the other end of the passage, which he reached within a few seconds, only to find it filled with unwanted furniture that obstructed his path to the door which was at the side of the house. Having picked his way there, he discovered it was locked, but took the same precaution as he had in the study, this time choosing a bookcase that was standing nearby as a further barrier. Given the cluttered state of the floor, the task was an awkward one, and it was several minutes before he was able to manoeuvre the heavy oak piece into place.

1/5

About the author

RENNIE AIRTH was born in South Africa and worked as a foreign correspondent for Reuters news service for many years. This is his fifth novel and the third in his John Madden mystery series. The first, River of Darkness, won the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière for best international crime novel of 2000 and was nominated for the Edgar, Anthony, and Macavity awards. He lives in Italy.