Hardcastle's Runaway

April 3, 2017
Set in 1919, Ison’s earnest 14th Hardcastle and Marriott historical (after 2016’s Hardcastle’s Collector) charts the effects of the Great War’s end on England: unemployment, strikes, rationing, and radical changes in expectations of a woman’s place in society. Against this backdrop, and while preparing for his daughter’s wedding, Det. Insp. Ernest Hardcastle, head of the CID for the Whitehall Division of London’s Metropolitan Police—assisted by his intelligent and long-suffering sidekick, Det. Sgt. Charles Marriott—looks into the disappearance of Lily Musgrave, the 17-year-old daughter of a wealthy MP. Lily has embraced the flapper style of dress and mores with abandon, kohling her eyes, shortening her skirts, and consorting with cads. Lily eventually surfaces alive and well, but then goes missing again. Hardcastle threatens and cajoles his way through lies and misdirection until he literally digs up the truth. The book’s villain comes somewhat out of left field, but Hardcastle, crusty and arrogant but astute, is a memorable lead.

September 9, 2013
Ison throws his readers more than a few curveballs in the 11th mystery featuring irascible Divisional Det. Insp. Ernest Hardcastle, of the Metropolitan Police (after 2012’s Hardcastle’s Frustration). On New Year’s Eve 1915, the DDI’s plans for celebrating are disrupted by the murder of jeweler and pawnbroker Reuben Gosling. A witness reports seeing two men speed off in a motorcar, but when the police locate the vehicle’s owner, wealthy Sinclair Villiers, he plausibly denies any involvement. Routine police work leads to the discovery that Sinclair’s army captain son, Haydn, who often borrows the car, spent the night of the crime with his colonel’s wife. Hardcastle, theorizing that an enemy of Haydn’s was trying to frame him, looks into an espionage angle, only to find British intelligence intervening in the case. Ison does little to distinguish Hardcastle from countless other gruff series leads, but he does offer readers a genuinely unusual secret at the heart of the mystery.

April 1, 2017
A wayward teenager spells trouble for Divisional DI Ernest Hardcastle (Hardcastle's Collector, 2016, etc.).The signing of the Armistice in November 1918 brings both hope and frustration to Britain's young men. The long war is over and they no longer face the daily threat of death. But jobs are scarce, money tight, and peacetime pursuits a poor substitute for the action many found on the front. While boys from the working class hope for jobs in one of the few factories still producing goods for greatly reduced demand, the demobbed gentry throng to joints like Max Quilter's VanDoo Club, where access to whiskey and women does little to improve their moral fiber. Still, the VanDoo provides Hardcastle his best chance of tracking down Austen Musgrave's daughter, Lily, a 17-year-old bent on following in the footsteps of her mother, Marie, who ran off to tread the boards and is currently living in sin with a fellow actor. Quilter admits that Lily was a frequent flyer at his club, along with punters like Oscar Lucas, son of the Irish peer Lord Slade. But aside from admitting that he's had sexual intercourse with her at least three times, young Lucas can't tell the police much about Lily. So Hardcastle has to lean on his long-suffering sergeants, particularly efficient DS Charles Marriott, to turn up leads in a case neither wanted in the first place. Readers who enjoy watching the irascible inspector browbeat his subordinates may enjoy Ison's latest entry, which offers precious little in the way of detection.

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December 14, 2015
Set in August, 1917, Ison’s solid 13th historical (after 2014’s Hardcastle’s Quartet) takes irascible Det. Insp. Ernest Hardcastle and his long-suffering assistant, Det. Sgt. Charles Marriott, to Hampshire, where 16-year-old Daisy Salter’s strangled corpse has been found in a field by farmer Joshua Blunden. The London policemen soon learn that Daisy was suspected of being light-fingered and consequently had trouble holding on to a job. She was also sexually active, and the autopsy reveals that she was pregnant. As the investigation follows predictable lines, the pair probe those who may have gotten her with child, including students at a local boarding school and a suspicious itinerant whom Blunden once caught in flagrante with the dead girl. En route to the fairly clued solution, Ison makes the most of the contrast between Marriott’s cynical responses to Hardcastle’s magisterial pronouncements on the art of detection as well as the wide-eyed awe of a young and callow local constable.

May 1, 2017
To say that Divisional Detective Inspector Ernie Hardcastle is not pleased when he's assigned to find missing teenager Lily Musgrave is definitely an understatement. Missing-person cases are for the likes of the uniform branch to handle, not senior policemen like Hardcastle. However, Hardcastle's boss is adamant that since Lily's father, an MP, is a close friend of the police commissioner, only a top cop can take the case. Grudgingly, the irascible Hardcastle and his long-suffering sergeant, Charles Marriott, launch an investigation that reveals Miss Musgrave to be a young lady who loves to entertain men for the price of a fancy dinner. When Lily returns home of her own volition, Hardcastle is very happy to be rid of the caseuntil Lily goes missing again, this time with a dreadful outcome. Set in London at the end of WWI, Ison's latest in his popular series of historical police procedurals is engaging, as always, and a good choice for fans of Charles Todd's two series set in the WWI era, one starring Bess Crawford and the other, Ian Rutledge.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2016
Ernie Hardcastle, Scotland Yard's CID head, knows everything there is to know about crime-solving on his home turf of London. But when he's assigned to solve the murder of a young woman in a small Hampshire village, he feels out of his depth. Things move at a much slower pace, local gossip is the main source of clues, and the big-city ways of London policing just don't translate. Still, Hardcastle has never met a case he can't solve, and he's determined that these Hampshire hicks won't get in his way. The murder victim, Daisy Salter, reputed to be a loose woman, was found dead in a field, having been raped before she died. Not only that, the autopsy shows she was pregnant. As usual, this British procedural has plenty to offer: a vividly evoked early twentieth-century setting, a meaty plot, plenty of twists, a surprise ending, andpresiding over it allthe cantankerous Hardcastle. Inspector Morse fans might find Hardcastle to be a kindred spirit, if less pompous.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)