Hardcastle's Obsession

June 1, 2011

Divisional Detective Inspector Hardcastle (Hardcastle's Mandarin, 2009, etc.) is back to his favorite sports: chasing murderers, rousting prostitutes and harassing his long-suffering sergeant, Marriott.

It looked as if all the occupants of 143 Washbourne Street were the unfortunate victims of one of Fritz's zeppelins, sent to terrorize Londoners already weary of the Great War. But one of the bodies in the basement of the bombed-out Victorian shows signs of strangulation. Dr. Spilsbury confirms that the young woman, two months pregnant, was murdered before the blast, and Hardcastle just knows that she must be on the game. So he puts out the cry at Victoria Station, and soon enough, the young toms who work there identify the girl as Annie Kelly, late of Greenwich, who told her parents she was working in London as a housemaid. Now it's up to Hardcastle and Marriott to check out Annie's circle of acquaintances. Her boyfriend, Seamus Riley, seems to have left for the front with the Royal Irish Fusiliers. But her favorite trick, Sir Royston Naylor, is right in town. With his wife, Lady Henrietta, tucked safely away at his country estate, Naylor is carrying on with Sarah Cotton, another lady of the night. Sarah, a deep one, leaves her post at Victoria every night for an elegant townhouse in Cadogan Place. But from Blackfriars to Belgravia, if there's crime afoot, Hardcastle will give chase, telling Marriott for the umpteenth time that you need to tell the taxi to take you to Scotland Yard; if you tell them Cannon Row, you're likely to end up in town.

The war may have turned lives upside down in Hardcastle's London, but nothing ever changes in the personal battle against miscreants of all shapes and sizes.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

April 1, 2011
Irascible, intrepid copper Ernest Hardcastle returns in a procedural set in 1916, during the dark days of WWI. A Zeppelin drops a bomb on London, demolishing a house near Victoria Station and killing all the occupants. But when the wardens clear the area, they make a grisly discovery. One of the female victims was strangled before the bomb was dropped. Hardcastle and his long-suffering sidekick, Detective Sergeant Charles Marriott, are assigned the case. The victim turns out to be a young prostitute who frequented the area, and Hardcastle and Marriott initially believe she may have been killed by one of her customers. But as they dig deeper, they realize the answer is far more complicated. With plenty of plodding detective work, a few flashes of inspiration, and some plain luck, they eventually solve the case, which turns out to be a tragic tale of jealousy, rage, infidelity, and love gone wrong. Ison serves up a meticulously researched, authentically styled period procedural laced with dark humor and acerbic wit and peopled with engaging characters.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)