“Parks’s gritty sequel to Gunner finds former Glasgow cop Joe Gunner in 1941 New York City working for the British Overseas Council, a covert office stirring up support for the U.S. to enter WWII. Parks brings wartime N.Y.C. to vivid life as Gunner haunts diners and the streets of Harlem, and real-life historical characters like crime scene photographer Weegee add color. For fans of WWII-era crime fiction, this series is worth a look.”
Description
In the sequel to Gunner, detective Joseph Gunner is plunged into a world where no one can be trusted and nothing is what it seems.
New York, December,1941. A city preparing for war. Troop ships and trains of full of young conscripts arrive every day. All of them set on one last party before being sent overseas. The bars and clubs are packed. Every night is like New Year’s Eve.
Gunner and Nickerson are working for the BSC, a section of the British Secret Service tasked with covertly encouraging pro-war sentiment. They are stationed at the Hamilton Princess Hotel, a huge censorship operation. Every wire, parcel of mail, or radio broadcast to Britain is listened to for coded messages.
When the head of the Japanese intelligence section is murdered and his flat ransacked, Gunner tries to find out why. Who needed to silence the victim? As the investigation continues, he finds some messages aren’t being intercepted after all. There’s a traitor in their midst. A traitor prepared to kill.
As the clock ticks down towards the 7th of December, Gunner races to solve the crime before he becomes the next victim.
Reviews
Praise for Gunner:
"Great stuff. A vivid sense of place and time and what a main character!”
"A notably original protagonist swept up in a high-level conspiracy reaching from Whitehall's corridors of power to Berlin and Rudolf Hess's doomed flight to Scotland. Enthralling."
"This well-researched historical thriller, which perfectly captures the chaos, danger and moral mess of a world turned upside down by conflict, is sure to attract new ones too.” - The Guardian
"A brilliant milieu, fantastic characters, an exciting story—in other words another typically great Alan Parks novel.”
