Winter 1946

One cold dark night, as a devastated London shivers through the transition to post-war life, a young nurse goes missing from the South London Hospital for Women & Children. Her body is discovered hours later behind a locked door.

Two women from the hospital join forces to investigate the case. Determined not to return to the futures laid out for them before the war, the unlikely sleuths must face their own demons and dilemmas as they pursue – The Midnight Man.

BEWARE THE DARKNESS BENEATH

Firstly thank you to Julie Anderson and her publishers for letting me read this book prior to publication.

The Midnight Man is the first of the Clapham Trilogy by Julie Anderson whose previous works include a Whitehall Thrillers trilogy featuring Cassandra Fortune and a two part adventure series set in 13th century Spain.

The story is told in the third person through the eyes of Faye and Eleanor with the chapter headings telling us whose thoughts we are following. The setting and the characters engaged me from the start and the criminal plot is well woven. I thought the amateur investigation started weakly but it picked up with an atmospheric, tense and thrilling denouement.

Any concerns are outweighed by the time and location settings, which give us an excellent social history. Julie is to be congratulated for thoroughly researching the hospital, the surrounding area and details of life as it was in 1946. In my opinion she has really grasped the atmosphere of that time. In particular I enjoyed reading about The South London Hospital for Women and Children, the creation of the National Health Service and the attitudes by many (male and female) towards women at that time. Less enjoyable but still informative was the side story about tuberculosis and its treatment.

The author has assembled a varied list of characters with real bonds forming between Faye, Eleanor and Beryl despite their different backgrounds and educations. Some of the lesser characters are stereotypical but still provide a good mix.

I have no indication as to when we can expect volumes two and three of this trilogy but I look forward to reading them. Julie Anderson’s The Midnight Man truly deserves five stars.

Julie Anderson is the CWA Dagger listed author of three Whitehall thrillers and a short series of historical adventure stories for young adults. Before becoming a crime fiction writer, she was a senior civil servant, working across a variety of departments and agencies, including the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. Unlike her protagonists, however, she doesn’t know where (all) the bodies are buried.

​She writes crime fiction reviews for Time and Leisure Magazine and is a co-founder and Trustee of the Clapham Book Festival.

She lives in south London where her latest crime fiction series is set, returning to her first love of writing historical fiction with The Midnight Man, to be published by Hobeck Press.