Angels Dining at the Ritz

by John Gardner

Published 26 March 2004
It was August 17th, 1942. The war is moving into a new stage, characterized on the home front by the arrival of the American forces, especially in the newly-built airfields of East Anglia. Civilians everywhere are having to adjust to the presence of the GIs. Meanwhile, WDS Suzie Mountford has been returned to Tommy Livermore's Reserve Squad at Scotland Yard, as his protegee and clandestine fiancee. When an eminent barrister, Peter Knight, is brutally murdered, along with his wife and young son, 'Dandy Tom' and his team are called in to investigate. Within hours their enquiries take them to the small Norfolk village of Long Newford, home of the Knight family since Norman times. There Suzie starts to unravel the sinister motives behind this murder, and its connection with American Air Force personnel stationed nearby...