#BlogTour ‘A Death In Mayfair’ by Mark Ellis

About the book…

On a bright Sunday morning in Hawaii, Japanese planes swoop down and attack the US naval base at Pearl Harbour. America enters the war and Britain no longer stands alone against Hitler.

Conditions on the home front remain bleak.

In a city pulverised by the Blitz, with rampant crime and corruption and overstretched police resources, life for Scotland Yard detective Frank Merlin continues as arduous as ever.

In the week of Japan’s aggression, the shattered body of beautiful film star Laura Curzon is found on the pavement beneath her Mayfair apartment, an apparent suicide. A mile away, the body of a strangled young girl is discovered in the rubble of a bombed-out building.

Merlin and his team investigate, encountering fraudulent film moguls, philandering movie stars, depraved Satanists and brutal gangsters as they battle through a wintry London in pursuit of the truth.

Hugest of thanks to Martina at Midas PR for the blogtour invite for ‘A Death In Mayfair’ by Mark Ellis which is available now in paperback from Headline Publishing and my gifted review copy.

This is a period in time about which I know relatively little, and have read even less and when I have, it tends to be focussed on the Resistance movement and individual stories, so I was a bit trepidatious about being able to keep up to speed with what is a large and complex book.

I needn’t have worried though, as you hit the ground running with an armed police invasion which sets the scene for a war torn London in 1941 where one business is taking advantage of the current, post Blitz situation and is booming-the crime business.

It had genuinely not occurred to me before about the difficulties the police would have had in solving crimes during the war, after all, where better a place to hide corruption and a dead body than in the midst of a national panic after the Blitz?

With Britain on its knees and the world holding its breath for America and Japan to show which side they are on, DI Merlin is dealing with trying to keep a lid on corruption, gangland violence and black market dealings. Having sent his child and wife away to live with her parents, away from the centre of the danger, Merlin is trying to keep himself together whilst stamping down crime-however, his work is cut out for him as the ever stretched police force are fighting an insurmountable wave of imported and home grown wrong ‘uns.

In the midst of this, with pressure from on high- an unchangeable motif no matter what timeframe a book is set in, there is always a snaggle toothed superior, barking out orders!-an apparent suicide and a strangled girl could not seem less likely to be linked. But as Frank Merlin digs deeper into the, he unravels a web of corruption which is absolutely timeless.

Suspensful and plot driven, this book keeps you on the edge of your seat throughout-it views the past not through a nostalgia driven hindsight, but one as brutally honest as any modern day thrillers. And all of it centered on an immaculately created lead character supported by his team of police. I am looking forward to reading more in the D.I Merlin series and thank you to Mark Ellis to opening my eyes to a new to me genre!

About the author…

Former barrister and businessman from Swansea. His first crime thriller, Princes Gate, set in WW2 London and featuring charismatic Scotland Yard detective Frank Merlin, was published in Summer 2011. Frank Merlin 2, Stalin’s Gold, published March 1 2014. Merlin 3 Merlin At War published in July 2017. Merlin At War has been longlisted for the 2018 CWA Historical Dagger.

Links-http://markellisauthor.com/

Twitter @MarkEllis15 @midaspr @headlinepg