Death of an Officer

London, spring 1943. DCI Frank Merlin is investigating the brutal murder of a respected doctor when the case begins to intersect with the disappearances of both British and American officers. The trail leads into private clubs, vice networks and parts of the wartime capital where black markets and criminal enterprise have flourished despite the continuing national emergency.

The sixth Frank Merlin novel remains centred on fictional crimes and police work but uses the social conditions of wartime London as more than scenery. By 1943 the city contains Allied servicemen, overstretched policing and expanding opportunities for organised crime, creating tensions that complicate Merlin’s investigation. The individual murder case is invented, while the wartime setting and pressures on London policing are historical.