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Published Sep 2022
224 pages
Genre: Mysteries
Publication Information
Tom Harper must catch a traitor intent on disrupting the war effort and bringing terror to the streets of Leeds in this page-turning mystery.
Leeds. December, 1916. Deputy Chief Constable Tom Harper is called out in the middle of the night when a huge explosion rips through a munitions factory supplying war materials, leaving death and destruction in its wake. A month later, matches and paper to start a fire are found in an army clothing depot. It's a chilling discovery: there's a saboteur running loose on the streets of Leeds.
As so many give their lives in the trenches, Harper and his men are working harder than ever - and their investigation takes a dark twist with two shootings, at the local steelworks and a hospital. With his back against the wall and the war effort at stake, Harper can't afford to fail. But can he catch the traitor intent on bringing terror to Leeds?
"Nickson plausibly and effectively ages his characters in his superior 10th mystery featuring Leeds copper Tom Harper...[He] does his usual superb job of evoking the period and balancing his lead's professional challenges with personal ones. This entry reinforces his place in the front rank of historical mystery authors." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"A gritty police procedural with well-drawn characters." - Kirkus Reviews
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Chris Nickson has written since he was a boy growing up in Leeds. At 21, he moved to the US, and spent the next 30 years there, returning to England in 2005, and finally full circle to Leeds. He's made a living as a writer since 1994, initially as a music journalist, specializing in world and roots music. These days there's far less of that, but he still produces a few articles and several reviews a year. He authored The NPR Casual Listener's Guide to World Music, a volume that's now long out of date.
His first novel, The Broken Token, came out in 2010, featuring Richard Nottingham, Constable of Leeds in the 1730s (there was a real Richard Nottingham, and that was his post, although it was probably largely ceremonial). There have been eight books in this series. Cold Cruel Winter was ...
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