Author – Mike Hollow
Publisher – Lion Fiction
Release Date – 20th March 2015
On the first night of the Blitz, a corpse is discovered in a van in the back streets of West Ham.
Detective Inspector John Jago recognizes the dead man as local Justice of the Peace Charles Villiers. But a German bomb obliterates all evidence.
Villiers was not a popular man, both powerful and feared. As the sirens wail, the detective must start matching motive to opportunity – and it doesn’t help when his boss foists an intrusive American journalist on him.
Jago soon discovers the dead man held many secrets, some reaching back to World War I. A lot of people wished Villiers dead – and an air raid is a good time to conceal a murder.
"Direct Hit", is a compelling murder mystery, set during World War Two.
When local Justice of the Peace, Charles Villiers, is found dead in his car, it’s up to Detective Inspector John Jago, of West Ham CID, to have the task of finding out why and who killed him. There’s just one problem. During a shelling by the Germans, the body is blown up along with any evidence. Now Jago has a real task on his hands.
Written expertly you wouldn’t believe that this is Mike Hollow’s debut novel. The attention to every little detail is profound, and gives you a real sense of life during the war and the impact that it had on the people who lived through it.
Running along the main theme of discovering who the killer is, we also get to discover information about the detective leading the investigation, learning about his earlier life, and what makes him tick.
The book doesn’t so much tell us what happened, but more shows us how Detective inspector Jago uses his detective skills to piece together the evidence, including information on Villiers that is less than favourable.
Working alongside his new assistant Detective Constable Cradock, and later American Journalist Dorothy, Jago uncovers more than he bargained for, especially when another man linked to the case, turns up dead.
Mike has created wonderful, strong characters that you can empathise with and warm to. I loved Detective Inspector Jago, and he reminded me of Sherlock Holmes with the manner in which he understood and studied the evidence, in order to discover the truth and bring the culprit to justice.
The book is thoroughly enjoyable and kept me gripped. I love a good nostalgic book and this didn’t disappoint. It certainly had plenty of depth to it.
My rating:
Four stars
Mike Hollow was born in West Ham, on the eastern edge of London, and grew up in Romford, Essex.
He studied Russian and French at the University of Cambridge and then worked for the BBC, and later, Tearfund.
In 2002 he went freelance as a copywriter, journalist and editor. He’s a published poet, and nowadays when not writing about the Blitz Detective, he makes his living as a translator.
Find out more at www.blitzdetective.com
Follow Mike on Twitter, @MikeHollowBlitz
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