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Series

Home Front Detective

The Home Front Detective series follows Detective Inspector Harvey Marmion and Sergeant Joe Keedy through wartime London from 1915 to 1918. Their cases arise from anti-German violence, conscription, munitions work, air raids, espionage fears and the pressures placed on a depleted police force while much of the country’s manpower is serving overseas.

Alongside the investigations, the novels follow the effects of the war on Marmion’s family and on Keedy’s relationship with Marmion’s daughter. The sequence treats the British home front as a place of bereavement, social change and opportunity as well as patriotism, showing how ordinary crimes acquire new motives and new forms under wartime conditions.

Reading order

Books in this series (11 books)

A Bespoke Murder cover

1. A Bespoke Murder

Edward Marston

4.2(1,164)

May 1915. While thousands of Britons fight in the trenches, a severely depleted police force remains behind to keep the Home Front safe. In London, the sinking of the Lusitania sparks an unprecedented wave of anti-German riots and arson attacks across the city. Among the victims…

An Instrument of Slaughter cover

2. An Instrument of Slaughter

Edward Marston

4.2(1,154)

January 1916. Britain is on the brink of enforcing conscription. Eligible young men who have not yet signed up to fight are despised as 'conchies' and 'shirkers', subjected to hatred and verbal abuse. Cyril Ablatt, leader of Shoreditch's group of conscientious objectors, makes a rousing speech…

Five Dead Canaries cover

3. Five Dead Canaries

Edward Marston

4.5(646)

1916. 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, the munitionettes, or 'canaries', are easily recognisable with their chemically-stained yellow faces. Among the raucous group of women is…

Deeds of Darkness cover

4. Deeds of Darkness

Edward Marston

4.3(1,256)

In June 1916, a young woman named Charlotte Reid is found murdered in a cinema. Harvey Marmion and Joe Keedy are assigned the task of finding the killer who so elusively fled in the dark. Before long, two more victims, of striking similarity but differing backgrounds,…

Dance of Death cover

5. Dance of Death

Edward Marston

4.3(962)

London, Autumn 1916. When he slips out of a house in the early hours of the morning, Simon Wilder is too preoccupied to realise that he is being stalked. As he walks along the street, lights begin to dim as a warning that there's another Zeppelin…

The Enemy Within cover

6. The Enemy Within

Edward Marston

4.4(772)

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…

Under Attack cover

7. Under Attack

Edward Marston

4.6(505)

June, 1917. While German Gotha bombers raid London from above, a man's body is fished from the Thames below. The man had been garrotted and his tongue cut out before he was left to his watery grave, and as the killer has taken care to remove…

The Unseen Hand cover

8. The Unseen Hand

Edward Marston

4.4(1,142)

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…

Orders to Kill cover

9. Orders to Kill

Edward Marston

4.4(1,204)

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…

Danger of Defeat cover

10. Danger of Defeat

Edward Marston

4.4(628)

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…

Spring Offensive cover

11. Spring Offensive

Edward Marston

4.3(631)

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…