23 January 2025.
ISBN: 978-0-7490-315-6 (PB)
It is spring 1918 and things are going badly for Britain and its allies as the Germans launch their Spring Offensive. Battalions of stormtroopers are forcing their way through the allied lines, while a million shells explode over them. Thousands of British soldiers have been killed or seriously wounded.
In London a fire breaks out and the Fire Brigade struggle to try to save the neighbouring houses and shops. Under the cover of the chaos caused by the fire, a nearby bank is robbed. Two police constables, who are on patrol, come upon the robbers leaving the bank and are viciously attacked; one is knocked unconscious and the other is stabbed to death.
Summoned in the middle of the night, Detective Inspector Harvey Marmion hurries to the scene of the crime. He is particularly distressed by the murder because the dead constable is an old friend who had joined the police force at the same time as Marmion. For once Marmion’s superior officer is fully supportive and allows him all the manpower available. This is a notable concession because there are a limited number of policemen at his disposal, as many former police officers are now serving in the army. Unfortunately, the officer that Marmion most wants to support him is not available. His trusted second-in-command, Detective Sergeant Joe Keedy, is still on the sick list after he was seriously wounded. Keedy was shot while breaking up a siege some weeks before and has just come out of hospital. He is still convalescent, although he is determined to be fully fit as soon as possible, both because he is eager to return to work and, even more important, he intends to walk down the aisle unaided when he marries Marmion’s daughter, Alice.
In Keedy’s place, Marmion is assigned Acting Detective Sergeant Clifford Burge, a dedicated and intelligent young detective who is eager to learn but does not possess Keedy’s experience or the instinct that comes with it. Marmion deduces that there must had been three active and ruthless men to carry out the actual robbery, two to invade the bank and a driver of the stolen getaway car. However, Marmion is also certain that there must have been another player who had provided the robbers with information about the security alarms in place in the bank and the way to circumvent them. He identifies three suspects amongst people previously employed by the bank. Keedy, who insists that his body might need further rest but his brain needs stimulation, suggests a fourth person who may be of interest. Marmion and Burge work their way through the suspects, attempting to identify the person who has betrayed the bank’s trust and facilitated the robbery. This entails travelling not just within London but right across the country. At the same time they work on tracking down the three men who physically committed the robbery, whom Marmion thinks have gone to ground somewhere outside the capital. They are handicapped by the shortage of manpower within the police force throughout the country, but they are helped by the willingness of everybody to do all they can to capture the killers of the policeman.
Marmion tries not to allow personal problems to interfere with his concentration on the investigation, but this is far from easy, and it is even harder when he knows that his wife, Ellen, is afraid. The Marmions’ son, Paul, was wounded fighting in the war and although he recovered physically, his mental health deteriorated. When Paul was discharged from the army, he disappeared from the lives of his parents and sister and fell into bad company. Now Ellen is terrified when she realises that somebody is sneaking into their house and stealing money and clothes, and she is also convinced that she is being followed. Despite having had the locks changed, Ellen feels unsafe in her own home, but is the culprit her son or one of Paul’s unpleasant new friends?
Marmion and his subordinates are well aware that, even if the investigation is successful and they trace the robbers to their hiding place, these are dangerous, desperate men who have already killed once and will have nothing to lose if they are cornered. Marmion is determined to ensure that the final confrontation with the killers does not prove fatal to any more of the policemen serving under his command.
Spring Offensive is the eleventh book in the Home Front Detective series and
it is a fascinating addition to an excellent series. The characters are
engaging and the historical background is cleverly portrayed as it captures the
horrors, tragedies and challenges of life on the Home Front in Britain during
the First World War. This is a very enjoyable book which I thoroughly
recommend.
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Reviewer:
Carol Westron
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