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It’s 1940, and Britain is hiding in the darkness of the blackout – until Hitler unleashes the terror of the Blitz. His bombs rain down, and the night skies of London are lit up by fire. They say you could read a newspaper by its light.

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Life changes overnight – suddenly it seems there’s death round every corner. But murder is still murder – and bombs or no bombs, for Detective Inspector John Jago of the Metropolitan Police the hunt for justice must go on.

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  • 'This is A-grade crime fiction set during British history's most dramatic era ... thoughtful, tense, tight - and totally recommended'

    Lee Child

  • ‘His portrayal of a London battered by war is entirely convincing’

    Daily Mail

  • ‘Incredibly well researched – a very enjoyable read’

    Waterstones

  • 'An absolute must-read for both historical and crime fiction fans'

    Soho Clarion

  • 'Highly recommended and excellent historical crime fiction'

    Historical Novel Society

  • 'The great British crime procedural is in good hands'

    Peterborough Telegraph

  • ‘I was enthralled – Mike Hollow and DI Jago have a new fan’

    Peter Lovesey

  • 'With atmosphere so thick you can feel the dust from the bombed-out rubble at the back of your throat… Not to be missed.'

    James R Benn

  • 'Highly compelling'

    HISTORICAL NOVELS REVIEW

  • 'Mike Hollow wonderfully evokes the events and atmosphere of wartime London'

    Peter Stansky

  • 'Captures the wartime world of danger, conspiracy, intrigue and deception quite brilliantly, and its unfashionable setting makes it all the more believable… A cleverly woven, intricately detailed mystery.'

    Crime Review

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Detective Inspector John Jago’s latest case:

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The Bloomsbury Murder

(October 2025)

 

Bloomsbury, London. A woman has been attacked and left to die – her crime, it seems, being kindness to strangers. Rosemary Webster had taken in victims of the devastating Blitz and refugees from war-torn Europe and given them refuge in her own home, but now she’s a victim too – of cold-blooded murder. As Detective Inspector John Jago pursues the trail of her killer across Bloomsbury’s leafy squares and into the distinguished environs of University College London, he uncovers a tangle of damaged hearts and minds. There may have been envy, resentment, even outright hostility. But who would want to strike down an angel of mercy in her own home?

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Here’s the rest of the series, in chronological order:

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The Blitz Detective

(Previously published as Direct Hit)

 

Saturday 7th September, 1940. The sun is shining, and in the midst of the good weather Londoners could be mistaken for forgetting their country was at war – until the wail of the air-raid sirens heralds an enemy attack. The Blitz has started, and normal life has abruptly ended – but crime has not. That night a man’s body is discovered in an unmarked van in the back streets of West Ham. When Detective Inspector John Jago is called to the scene, he recognises the victim: local Justice of the Peace, Charles Villiers. The death looks suspicious, but when a German bomb obliterates all evidence, Jago’s job to find the truth gets a lot more complicated.

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The Canning Town Murder

(Previously published as Fifth Column)

 

September, 1940. As the Blitz takes its nightly toll on London and Hitler prepares his invasion fleet just across the Channel in occupied France, Britain is full of talk about enemy agents. Suspicion is at an all-time high and no one is sure who can be trusted. In Canning Town, rescue workers are unsettled when they return to a damaged street and discover a body that shouldn’t be there. When closer examination of the corpse reveals death by strangling, Detective Inspector John Jago is called upon to investigate. But few seem to really care about the woman’s death, not even her family. As Jago digs deeper he starts to uncover a trail of deception and betrayal…

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The Custom House Murder

(Previously published as Enemy Action)

 

With London having endured the Blitz for nearly a month, people are calling for vengeance, but once again the night heralds more destruction. In Custom House, anxious residents dutifully head to the nearest public air-raid shelter as the warning siren wails. When dawn brings the all-clear, people disperse, but one man remains – he is dead, stabbed through the heart. Detective Inspector John Jago discovers that the victim was a pacifist. But why, then, was he carrying a loaded revolver in his pocket?

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The Stratford Murder

(Previously published as Firing Line)

 

October, 1940. Bombs are falling on Stratford when air-raid warden Sylvia Parks sees a house with a shining light, in clear breach of the city’s strict blackout rules. With no answer at the door she manages to break in, only to discover the body of a young woman, strangled to death with a stocking. For Detective Inspector John Jago, the scene brings back memories of the gruesome Soho Strangler, who murdered four women a few years ago but has never been caught – could there be a connection?

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The Dockland Murder

(Published March 2021)

 

November 1940. Darkness descends and another anxious night begins for those tasked with guarding the industrial heartland of London from enemy attack. As a policeman patrols the Royal Albert Dock, something catches his eye – a man is sprawled awkwardly across a nearby barge, a dagger lodged in his back. Detective Inspector John Jago discovers the victim was a dock worker by day and a Home Guard volunteer by night – and there are things even his wife doesn’t know about his past. As the investigation unfolds, Jago uncovers a widening circle of secrets ranging across family tensions, the last war and a far-flung corner of the British Empire.

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The Pimlico Murder

(Published November 2021)

 

Armistice Day, 1940. The nation remembers the Great War while a new and harrowing conflict rumbles on, and Detective Inspector John Jago of the Metropolitan Police must set aside his own painful memories to investigate a suspicious death in Pimlico, south-west London. A young man, Terry Watson, has been found in an Anderson shelter, battered about the head and with two white poppies in his pocket. As the investigation delves into Watson’s background, Jago and his assistant DC Cradock find themselves knee-deep in Pimlico’s shady underworld and connections with Mosley’s fascist party. It will take all their skills to discover the truth behind the young man’s brutal death.

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The Camden Murder

(Published December 2022)

 

As dawn breaks over Camden Town, north London, and the overnight blackout ends, a milkman finds a car ablaze in a builder’s yard a stone’s throw from the Regent’s Canal. The charred body of the driver is still at the wheel. The victim is Les Latham, a commercial traveller for the Barings confectionery company – he liked to be known as Lucky Les, but it seems his luck has finally run out. Sifting through the dead man’s belongings, Detective Inspector John Jago discovers a mysterious photograph and some suspicious-looking petrol ration books that set him off on a murky trail of deceit, corruption and murder.

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The Covent Garden Murder

(October 2023)

 

December, 1940. Christmas is coming, but the Blitz goes on. In London’s Covent Garden, where the glamour of theatreland rubs shoulders with the bustle of the capital’s biggest fruit and vegetable market, war has closed the theatres and ruined the market trade. When a daylight air raid hits the Prince Albert Theatre in Drury Lane, rescuers find a man dying in the wreckage. But it wasn’t the bomb that’s ending his life – he’s been stabbed, and with his dying breath he whispers what sounds like a fragmented confession. As Detective Inspector Jago begins to investigate, there’s an underlying question he must grapple with: was the murdered man himself a killer?

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The Soho Murder

(Published October 2024)

 

As New Year’s Eve approaches, the St Paul’s Cathedral area has suffered London’s worst air raid since the Blitz started. Waves of incendiary bombs have burnt the heart of British book publishing to the ground. Detective Inspector John Jago finds a desolate woman among the ruins of her family business and must break the news – her husband’s been shot dead at their home in Soho. An antiquarian bookseller, he’d just acquired a mysterious volume that’s priceless – and missing. Did someone covet it enough to kill for it? Obsessive collectors and unscrupulous dealers haunt Jago’s descent into Soho’s underworld, where he finds criminals are branching out in the shadows of the blackout.

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