Hardcastle's Secret Agent

April 26, 2021
Set on the eve of WWII in 1939, British author Ison’s suspenseful 16th procedural featuring a member of the Hardcastle family (after 2019’s Hardcastle’s Quandary) focuses on Det. Insp. Walter Hardcastle of Scotland Yard. In the first chapter, an unnamed German spy who has successfully passed for English burglarizes a home in search of secret documents. Meanwhile, Walter gets an unexpected career boost when he’s promoted to a position that puts him in charge of an area of London plagued by a spate of burglaries that includes a factory making covert weapons of interest to German intelligence. A few chapters later, when the burglar is surprised by the unexpected return of the couple who own the home, he guns them down, and Walter has a double homicide to solve. Ison, a 30-year veteran of the Metropolitan Police’s Special Branch unit, makes good use of his experience in crafting a plausible plot. Readers will look forward to further Hardcastle mysteries. Agent: Bill Hamilton, A M Heath & Co. (U.K.)

May 1, 2021
It's 1939, and Britain is on the brink of war. Irascible Detective Inspector Ernie Hardcastle has retired, but his son, Wally, has followed in Ernie's footsteps and become a copper. The recently promoted Wally barely has his feet under a new desk when he's faced with two challenging cases--the murders of two young women and a baffling series of burglaries where only a few not-very-valuable items are missing. Wally suspects that an attempt to steal secrets from a company that manufactures war supplies is at the heart of the mystery. Frustratingly, despite Wally and his team's best efforts, the investigations grind to a halt due to a lack of leads, prompting Wally to show the same dogged persistence that typified his father's work. Sadly, this appears to be the last book in the Hardcastle family saga (and in Ison's equally likable Brock and Poole series), since Ison died in December 2020. Fans, however, will be gratified that this last book, like its predecessors, is an entertaining historical procedural that perfectly captures both period ambience and the challenges of policing in the mid-twentieth century.

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