The DCI Frank Merlin
1 primary work • 4 total works
Book 1
DCI Merlin's investigation of diplomats at the Embassy ruffles feathers at the Foreign Office - the American Ambassador is a well-known supporter of appeasement and many powerful and influential Britons favour the pursuit of a negotiated peace settlement with Hitler.
The death of another Embassy employee leads Merlin into some of the seedier quarters of wartime London where a corrupt night-club owner, various high-flying diplomats and the Ambassador himself appear to be linked to the events surrounding the deaths.
Merlin has to pursue his detective work under the interfering supervision of an Assistant Metropolitan Commissioner who is fearful about the impact of Merlin's investigations on Anglo-American relations at a time when America represents to many Britain's only hope of salvation.
Capturing the atmosphere of Britain in 1940 during the `phoney war' when, although war rages on the Continent, life continues relatively peacefully in Britain, Princes Gate is an enthralling detective novel.
September 1940 London. Above the city the Battle of Britain rages and the bombs rain down. On the streets below, DCI Frank Merlin and his officers investigate the sudden disappearance of Polish RAF pilot Ziggy Kilinski while also battling an epidemic of looting unleashed by the chaos and destruction of the Blitz.
Kilinski's fellow pilots, a disgraced Cambridge don, Stalin's spies in London, members of the Polish government in exile and a ruthless Russian gangster are amongst those caught up in Merlin's enquiries. Sweeping from Stalin's Russia to Civil War Spain, from Aztec Mexico to pre-war Poland, and from Hitler's Berlin to Churchill's London a compelling story of treasure, grand larceny, treachery, torture and murder unfolds. Eventually as Hitler reluctantly accepts that the defiance of the RAF has destroyed his chances of invasion for the moment, a violent shoot-out in Hampstead leads Merlin to the final truth....and Stalin to his gold.
Stalin's Gold is the latest in the Frank Merlin Series, and follows on from Princes Gate (Matador 2011).
With action spanning Buenos Aires, New York, Cairo and Occupied France, Merlin and his team are plunged into a dark world of espionage, murder, love and betrayal.
December 1941
On a bright Sunday morning in Hawaii, Japanese planes swoop down and attack the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbour. America enters the war and Britain no longer stands alone against Hitler.
Conditions on the home front remain bleak. In a city pulverised by the Blitz, with rampant crime and corruption and stretched police resources, life for Scotland Yard detective Frank Merlin continues as arduous as ever.
In the week of Japan’s aggression, the shattered body of beautiful film star Laura Curzon is found on the pavement beneath her Mayfair apartment, an apparent suicide. A mile away, the body of a strangled young girl is discovered in the rubble of a bombed-out building.
Merlin and his team investigate, encountering fraudulent film moguls, philandering movie stars, depraved Satanists and brutal gangsters as they battle through a wintry London in pursuit of the truth.