‘Dead Centre’ by Joan Lock

Published by Robert Hale,
30 May 2008.
ISBN: 978-0-7090-8574-4 (HB)

Set at the time of Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee in 1887, the ‘dead centre’ refers to London’s Trafalgar Square where the disgruntled, angry and often hungry unemployed gather daily to protest.  And with many of them now also sleeping in the square, the police are tired of the constant battle to keep order.  In this turmoil of humanity Detective Inspector Ernest Best catches sight of Stark, a man wanted for a brutal murder in Whitechapel.

When a prominent member of the new socialist organisation leading the protest is found murdered, Ernest Best finds his time divided between finding a killer and hunting for Stark.  His search for the murderer provides the reader with interesting background to these troubled times, with which I am not familiar but found fascinating, particularly as several of the prominent people of the time are brought into the story. With the complexity of his investigation and his heavy workload we see little in this book of Ernest’s artist wife Helen, but although the conversations between Ernest and Helen are few the reader is still very conscious of her strength and support for her husband.

But forefront in this story is Florence Bagnall, a young member of the Salvation Army, as she makes her calls on the sick, poor and unfortunate, bringing solace and where she can, food to supplement their meagre rations. Joan Lock paints a very bleak picture of what life was like for many people in London a hundred years ago.  Apart from Ernest Best, Florence is the only other person who knows what Stark looks like having been unwittingly a witness to his evil deeds. But Florence is sure that Stark is long gone and is unaware that he is in the vicinity. An endearing part of the story is the growing love between Florence and PC Albert Roberts. But with the disorder in central London Albert finds it difficult to get to see that much of Florence, and I admit to reading with my heart in my mouth as she makes her rounds feeling her way in the dark and fog of Whitechapel.

This is a marvellous entry in this excellent series. Highly recommended.
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Reviewer: Lizzie Hayes
Earlier books in the series are Dead Image, Dead Born and Dead Letters, Dead End, Dead Fall, Dead Loss.

Joan Lock is a former nurse and policewoman. Her first book Lady Policeman described her six years as a policewoman in London's West End during the 1950s. The next, Reluctant Nightingale, her previous training as a nurse. Nine non-fiction, police/crime books followed including three on Scotland Yard's First Detectives and a history of the British Women Police a subject on which she is an authority. Joan has also written short stories, radio plays (some historical) and radio documentaries and has been a regular columnist for the Police Review and Red Herrings, the journal of the Crime Writers' Association.  Her crime fiction includes one modern crime novel, Death in Perspective which was based around house-sitting experiences, and seven Victorian featuring the charismatic Scotland Yard Detective Ernest Best.