Home Front Detective Books

May 1915. As zeppelin bombs fall on London and with the sinking of the Lusitania, anti-German hysteria reaches fever pitch and attacks on German immigrants surge. Not even the West End of London is immune. Jacob Stein's bespoke tailoring business comes under brutal attack, leaving his safe ransacked, his daughter, Ruth, raped and Jacob dead. Inspector Harvey Marmion is detailed to the case and faces an uphill struggle to track down the perpetrators, even up to the chaos of the Front Line. But was the murder as opportunistic as it first appears, or did someone with a deadly grudge plan the attack?

1916. Inspector Marmion and Sergeant Keedy are assigned to the case when the body of a young conscientious objector is found bludgeoned to death. Public sympathy is lukewarm for conscientious objectors with some people even claim that a ‘conchie’ deserves to die if he won’t fight for his King and Country. As the detectives identify one suspect, others pop up in the most unexpected places. Everyone speaks well of Ablatt but is he really the saint they describe? Marmion and Keedy have to dig deep in order to unearth the instrument of slaughter and the person who wielded it. Marston has legions of fans for his Railway Detective series, among others, and they are sure to find the rich historical period of WW1 London very much to their taste.

Marmion and Keedy return for a third time in the acclaimed Home Front Detective series. As thousands of Brits are fighting on the Front Line, a new breed of women emerges to hold the Home Front together. Fiercely independent and fiery-spirited, these women are a raucous group of munition workers, or ‘munitionettes’. The ‘canaries’, so-called because of their chemically-stained yellow faces, decide to celebrate leader Florrie Duncan’s birthday but their frolics are soon cut short when all but one are killed in a startling explosion. With five times the victims there are five times the possible motivations for the murderer, and Marmion and Keedy certainly uncover some surprising clues. Grappling with this perplexing murder mystery involves marital dysfunction, failed bomb plots and an extremely competitive women’s football team…

In June 1916, a young woman is found murdered in a cinema. Harvery Marmion and Joe Keedy set out to find the killer who so elusively fled in the dark. Before long, two more victims, of striking similarity but differing backgrounds, are found dead around the city. Meanwhile, miles from home, Marmion’s son Paul prepares for life on the front line as he marches towards the Battle of the Somme. Suffering a vicious blow in No Man’s Land, Paul is left blinded for the rest of his life. Marmion must come to terms with the permanent darkness of his son’s life, while continuing to search for the brutal killer who only strikes in the dark.

London, Autumn 1916. When he slips out of a house in the early hours of the morning, Simon Wilder is too preoccupied to realize that he is being stalked. As he walks along the street, lights begin to dim as a warning that there’s another Zeppelin attack. Guns begin to pound away as British airplanes attack the Zeppelin. Suddenly, it bursts into flame and lights up the whole sky. The crowds cheer as the great fireball drops slowly down and crashes in a field but the one person unable to watch is Simon Wilder. While he is staring up at the sky, he is stabbed to death and left in an alleyway. It will prove to be a very puzzling case for Inspector Marmion and Sergeant Keedy...

Pentonville Prison. Wally Hubbard is serving a long sentence for arson. But after befriending and tricking one of the officers, Hubbard makes an audacious escape. Inspector Marmion, the detective who arrested Hubbard, is warned to watch his back, but it seems that Hubbard has another target in his murderous sights. However, the investigation is mired in confusion, the identities of killer and victim become increasingly ambiguous. An inmate at an internment camp who might be a spy sending intelligence to the Germans complicates matters further, and the multiplying manhunts, as well as Marmion’s concern for his injured and withdrawn son Paul, leave the detective desperate and perhaps with too many threads to untangle.

June, 1917. While another daylight air raid batters London, the body of respected businessman Gilbert Donohoe is fished from the Thames. Inspector Marmion struggles with the murder case alongside his anxieties for his now-missing son, Paul, but the pressure increases when the Metropolitan Police are the target of a series of vicious press attacks. As Marmion is pilloried in the press, he uncovers a seedy path through London which will lead him towards the killer.

1917. The Lotus Hotel offers sanctuary for its exclusively female clientele, attracting the cream of London’s society. But a dead body found in one of its rooms is hardly good for business, and when it is discovered that the woman was neither a guest nor a member of staff, the Lotus’s reputation as a safe haven is cast in doubt. Inspector Marmion and Sergeant Keedy are dispatched to look into the events at the hotel and soon suspect foul play. Tangling with a forgetful widower, a wily competitor and the haughty hotel owner, the pair will have to delve into the past to solve this crime in the present.

December 1917. Ada Hobbes arrives on a frosty morning to clean the house owned by Dr Tindall, a surgeon at the Edmonton Military Hospital. She is shocked to find the blood-covered body of her employer sprawled across the floor. He has been hacked to death. Detective Inspector Harvey Marmion and Sergeant Joe Keedy arrive to a horrific scene. Someone enjoyed killing him, without a doubt. Their investigation takes them far out of London and on the trail of a very different Dr Tindall, one who was not the respectable local doctor everyone thought he was. Marmion and Keedy will need to sift through a number of likely suspects to find the killer behind this gruesome murder.

February, 1918. In the small hours of a cold morning, a burglary in Limehouse has escalated into a sinister siege between a band of thieves and the authorities, and a police constable lies dead. Detective Inspector Harvey Marmion and Detective Sergeant Joe Keedy hasten to the scene where attempts at talking the men into surrendering have been met with stony silence. When the door is eventually battered down, Keedy bravely leads the way in. Then a gunshot is heard: Keedy has been hit. While his partner is rushed to hospital, Marmion is on the trail of the burglars, following leads as to their previous targets and overall goals. As defenceless Keedy remains in the sights of the murderous thieves, Marmion delves into the secrets that lie behind this fatal incident ...

London, March 1918. British newspapers carry the dire news that the German Spring Offensive has begun, with thousands of British lives lost. Against this sombre backdrop, further mayhem strikes in the capital when a fire provides the diversion needed for an audacious bank robbery which leaves a police officer dead in its wake. For Detective Inspector Harvey Marmion, the investigation has a personal connection. However, the task of bringing the culprits to justice will be an uphill battle without Detective Sergeant Keedy, who is anxious to be released from hospital, at his side. And nothing in this case is quite what it seems .