Description

December, 1940. It is the day before New Year’s Eve, but there will be no crowds celebrating on the streets of London this year. After a quiet Christmas, the city has just suffered its most devastating air raid since the opening days of the Blitz.

The most shocking destruction lies in the shadow of St Paul’s Cathedral. Paternoster Row, the centre of British book publishing, is obliterated overnight. Among the survivors is a dealer in antiquarian books who escapes death – only to die that very night, shot dead in his Soho flat.

The priceless volume he’d just acquired is missing – did someone covet it enough to kill for it? In his search for the murderer, the Blitz Detective DI John Jago uncovers a hidden world of obsessive book collectors and unscrupulous dealers. And as he investigates, he finds himself drawn deeper into the Soho underworld, where criminal gangs are fighting their own private war – and even perhaps printing their own money.