Sure and Certain Death
A gripping World War Two thriller
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- £0.99
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- £0.99
Publisher Description
A brilliant evocation of the period and a truly unnerving, menacing and original plot...
Sure and Certain Death is the fourth chilling World War Two crime mystery in the Francis Hancock series by award-winning Barbara Nadel. Perfect for fans of Lindsey Davis and Nicola Upson.
East London, 1940: Francis Hancock finds the brutally eviscerated body of a woman in a derelict house. Francis' sister, Nancy, knew the victim. Then, shockingly, two more murders follow. Rumours start to spread through the East End about another Jack the Ripper. When a fourth woman is murdered, Nancy admits that she knew all of the victims, and Francis sets out to find the killer, discovering a trail of murderous resentment that goes back decades...
What readers are saying about Sure and Certain Death:
'For Nadel fans, Sure and Certain Death is a must-read, as it is for historians of East London'
'Atmospheric, touching, different and unputdownable!'
'More brutal murders in a storyline that is gripping to the last page'
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Set in early 1941, Nadel's unremarkable fourth Francis Hancock mystery (after 2008's Ashes to Ashes) involves yet another search for a latter-day Jack the Ripper. Hancock, a 48-year-old undertaker and Great War veteran, happens on the mutilated corpse of Nellie Martin in a ruined house in London's bomb-ravaged East End. Even before a second victim turns up, rumors swirl that the Ripper has returned, despite the half-century that has passed since the 1888 autumn of terror. Hancock eventually learns that each of the women had been a White Feather girl who confronted able-bodied men seen out of uniform during WWI and presented them with white feathers as a symbol of cowardice. He's unsettled to discover that his older sister also participated in the movement. A less than compelling whodunit plot and a hero whose torment over his war experiences appears commonplace compared to that of, say, Charles Todd's Ian Rutledge make this a routine read.
