London 1987 and Detective Constable Jamie Day arrives in London as a transferee from a uniform post in rural Norfolk.
On his way into the station, the day before he is supposed to start, he is sent to a murder scene. A young cop from the sticks he isn’t expecting his first incident to be a body chopped up and dumped in bags, but that’s what he gets.
Unfortunately for him this is just the first in a line of gruesome discoveries that lead Jamie, and his new team, to start investigating the gay scene where it is becoming obvious that a serial killer is active.
Jamie is keen to impress and his boss DCI Harry Dean is impressed, as is one of his colleges, WPC Tracy Steel.
But there’s always that one person in a team that has his nose put out by the newcomer, and in this case its ex vice copper DC Liam Cole, who takes an instant dislike to Jamie.
The serial killer investigation overlaps an internal police investigation which is looking at a senior officer who is deeply involved in the seedier, and more violent side of the gay sex scene, and police politics soon starts to make things awkward, especially for Jamie who is as naive to the politics as he is to the types of crime he is now investigating.
This is not a complex story. There is no “shark infested Custard” scenarios. Everything just slowly unwinds. In a very captivating manner.
Set in London, in the mid 1980s, it is set in the time when being gay was just about becoming acceptable, people were acknowledging that a gay life style existed, and that not all gay men were perverts. But it was also when AIDs was at its height as an incurable death sentence.
The police investigation in this story highlights the fear that was present both in the gay community, and also a largely ignorant general population.
It makes the investigation more sensitive and difficult.
It also shows the Met Police at a turning point. Female Constables were common place but they were still in uniform, which included a bowler type hat, a skirt, a woolly tights.
It amazed me that in the book, and in real life, even the female constables working with the plain clothes CID officers were still in uniform.
I was in the Fire Service during these times and I clearly remember female police officers turning up at incidents in these uniforms.
I also remember how scary the AIDs disease was, and the precautions we had to take when dealing with casualties at scenes.
Because I was there in those days I can vouch for how realistic the background in this book is. It brought back many memories of the way we dealt with incidents, and how the gay community was treated by the rest of us so called straight people.
The story also contains scenes which include gay sexual assault. The scenes are not gratuitous, and are completely within context of the story, but some readers should be aware that they are graphic enough to be triggering if you are affected by that type of thing.
Would I recommend this book. Yes I would, and as a bonus there’s a short story at the end.
I hope this isn’t a standalone story. I would really like to read more of Jamie and his career in the Met getting on for 40 years ago.
It wasn’t that long ago but reading this book it reminds me of what a completely different world we were living in back then.
Pages: 337. Publisher: Raven Street Publishing. UK Publishing date: 9th July 2026
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