The London Blitz Murders

Collin’s character is Agatha Christie who, while helping the war effort by working by day in a hospital, links up with renowned pathologist Sir Bernard Spilsbury in his investigation into a series of Ripper-style murders committed under the cover of London’s numerous blackouts. London’s women, already strained and anxious because of the wartime inconveniences, are terrified. With every blackout, a murderer might be lurking in the darkened alleys or shelters to claim another victim.

Collins is careful to let us know where the lines between his fiction and Christie’s factual life intersect, and points out that many of the characters in this novel were, in fact, real people. Information about wartime hazards and the ways Londoners adjusted to them is artfully described, giving readers a sense of life in England’s “homefront” during these devastating years.

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