Death in Blitz City by David Young
Published by Bonnier Zaffre Ltd. on July 7, 2022
Genres: Fiction / Mystery & Detective / General
Pages: 400
Format: ARC
Source: Compulsive Readers
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1942. Hull, East Yorkshire - It is the most heavily-bombed city outside of London - but for the sake of national morale the Hull Blitz is kept top secret. Only the politicians in Whitehall and Hull's citizens themselves know of the true chaos.

Newly-posted Inspector Ambrose Swift cannot believe the devastation he finds. But for Swift and his two deputies - part-time bare-knuckle boxer Jim 'Little' Weighton and Dales farmer's daughter Kathleen Carver - it's murder, not the war, that's at the forefront of their minds.

When a series of sadistic killings is wrongly blamed on locally-stationed black American GIs, Swift, a one-armed former WW1 cavalryman who tours the rubble-strewn city on a white horse, soon discovers these are no ordinary murders. The fetid stench of racism, corruption and perversion go to the very top. And for Swift, Weighton and Carver, finding the real killers means putting their own lives at risk - because powerful forces in the US and Britain cannot let the war effort be undermined. Not even by the truth.

I received this book for free from Compulsive Readers in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Today is my stop on the tour for Death in Blitz City by David Young, thanks to Compulsive Readers for the opportunity to take part in this tour.

I loved the premise for this book, we have plenty of novels set in WWII and plenty of detective fiction novels but this is a first for me in that it blends the two.

As well as a world war and serial killer we have a disabled DCI, sexism, racism and political corruption, there’s a lot happening in this novel and I flew through the pages. While DCI Ambrose wasn’t a character I particularly liked, I did love his team of Seargeant Weighton and WPC Kathleen Carver and I really would like to see more from this team.

Hull was never a place that was really on my radar (sorry), but Young paints us such a vivid picture of the place, it really was a character in itself. As a heavily bombed city during the war it provided a brilliant backdrop to show just how hard life was back then and the extraordinary lengths that people went to just to survive.

Fast paced, part fact, part fiction this weaves the two together really well into a thoroughly enjoyable read which I’m hoping won’t be left as a standalone.