Hardcastle's Secret Agent
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Detective Inspector Walter Hardcastle is following in his father’s footsteps, but is his rapid rise about to be threatened by a spate of disturbing break-ins linked to the war effort?
August, 1939. As war looms, Detective Inspector Walter Hardcastle is following in the footsteps of his father, Ernest, and progressing through the ranks of the Metropolitan Police. Summoned to the office of Charles Marriot, Deputy Assistant Commissioner of CID at New Scotland Yard, Walter learns that he has been promoted to a senior role at V Division, and is plunged into a top secret case when burglaries occur at the homes of those working on a new type of war submarine.
Could a German spy be behind the break-ins? When one of the burglaries ends with a double murder, the stakes get higher for Walter. Can he track down an enemy agent on the streets of London while also resolving another disturbing case?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Set on the eve of WWII in 1939, British author Ison's suspenseful 16th procedural featuring a member of the Hardcastle family (after 2019's Hardcastle's Quandary) focuses on Det. Insp. Walter Hardcastle of Scotland Yard. In the first chapter, an unnamed German spy who has successfully passed for English burglarizes a home in search of secret documents. Meanwhile, Walter gets an unexpected career boost when he's promoted to a position that puts him in charge of an area of London plagued by a spate of burglaries that includes a factory making covert weapons of interest to German intelligence. A few chapters later, when the burglar is surprised by the unexpected return of the couple who own the home, he guns them down, and Walter has a double homicide to solve. Ison, a 30-year veteran of the Metropolitan Police's Special Branch unit, makes good use of his experience in crafting a plausible plot. Readers will look forward to further Hardcastle mysteries.
