‘The Cambridge Siren’ by Jim Kelly

Published by Allison and Busby,
20 March 2025.
ISBN 978-0-7490-3139-8 (HB)

Set in Cambridge in the autumn of 1941, The Cambridge Siren is the fourth book in Jim Kelly’s wartime series featuring Detective Inspector Eden Brooke.

With his wife Claire, daughter Joy and granddaughter baby Iris, Brooke is discussing the likely whereabouts and activities of their son Luke - a commando, and son-in-law Ben - a submariner. Then Sergeant Ralph Edison, Brooke’s right-hand man appears. A young man has been found dead with both his wrists slit in the Trinity bomb shelter. Curiously, the dead man had Brooke’s phone number written on his hand. Not long afterwards the body of a second young man is discovered in remarkably similar circumstances. A third young man jumps off a high ledge and dies. Brooke believes two of the men may have been murdered and the third driven to suicide.

Brooke’s son-in-law, Ben was on a sub that missed an easy target when it fired its torpedoes. Ben checked the sub’s periscope and found its lenses had been deliberately misaligned.  Periscopes - absolutely vital for the war effort - had also been interfered with on other subs.  The sabotage was thought to originate in a local factory that manufactured periscopes. Brooke’s superior officer, DI Carnegie-Brown, instructs him to give top priority to find those responsible.  Brooke and his small team spent hours watching workers in the factory and following deliveries of the completed periscopes to naval docks in the north, but they drew a blank. They were up against very crafty and well-organised saboteurs.

Determined to get justice for the murder victims, Brooke continues to investigate the deaths of the three young men. They had all lodged at a boarding house, The Laurels, and seemed to have plenty of money to spend.  Who was paying them and why?  The house belonged to Dr Charles Hayle, a mysterious man who was said to spend a lot of time in Washington working on a secret, wartime project. The manager of The Laurels, Jackie Brodie, also gave the impression she had something to hide.  Brooke’s trip to the greyhound track with son-in-law Ben helps to explain some of the oddities.

The Cambridge Siren is an absolute delight to read. Apart from its varied collection of mind-teasing plots, much of its charm originates from the supply of titbits about local history, locations and buildings and the glimpses into the old alliances and friendships that Brooke had formed whilst he was growing up and attending college in Cambridge. The outbreak of the first world war had put an end to Brooke’s scientific studies and prohibited him from returning to them once his eyesight had been irreparably damaged when he was taken prisoner. His visits to the night porter at his old college tell of a warm and lasting friendship. Help from an old friend and academic, allows Brooke to make an unofficial and hair-raising visit to a locked university laboratory. What he discovers there nearly costs him his life. Peeps into the lives of the Brooke family, their friends and colleagues provide characters that you care and worry about and gently subsumes you into wartime Cambridge with a refreshing lack of hysteria or hyperbole. This is one of those rare stories that sitting quietly on your shelf drawers you back to read it again. Wonderful. 
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Reviewer Angela Crowther

Jim Kelly was born in 1957 and is the son of a Scotland Yard detective. He went to university in Sheffield, later training as a journalist and worked on the Bedfordshire Times, Yorkshire Evening Press and the Financial Times. His first book, The Water Clock, was shortlisted for the John Creasey Award and he has since won a CWA Dagger in the Library and the New Angle Prize for Literature. He lives in Ely, Cambridgeshire. 

Angela Crowther is a retired scientist.  She has published many scientific papers but, as yet, no crime fiction.  In her spare time Angela belongs to a Handbell Ringing group, goes country dancing and enjoys listening to music, particularly the operas of Verdi and Wagner.