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A crime thriller from the author of "Weirdo" set in Essex during the Second World War, blending a grisly murder mystery with an exploration of spiritualism.
About the author
Cathi Unsworth began a career in journalism at nineteen on the music weekly Sounds, and has since worked for many music, arts, film and alternative lifestyle journals. She is the author of five other novels, Without the Moon [9781846689864], Weirdo [9781846687938] The Not Knowing [9781852428921], The Singer [9781846686405] and Bad Penny Blues [9781846686788], and the editor of the award-winning crime compendium London Noir, all published by Serpent's Tail. She lives in London.
Summary
April 1943: four boys playing in Hagley Woods, Worcestershire make a gruesome discovery. Inside an enormous elm tree, there is the body of a woman, her mouth stuffed with a length of cloth. As the case goes cold, mysterious graffiti starts going up across the Midlands: 'Who put Bella in the Wych Elm?'
To Ross Spooner, a police officer working undercover for spiritualist magazine Two Worlds, the messages hold a sinister meaning. He's been on the track of a German spy ring who have left a trail of black magic and mayhem across England, and this latest murder bears all the hallmarks of an ancient ritual.
At the same time, Spooner is investigating the case of Helen Duncan, a medium whose messages from the spirit world contain highly classified information. As the establishment joins ranks against Duncan, Spooner must face demons from his own past, uncover the spies hiding beneath the fabric of wartime society - and confront those who suspect that he, too, may not be all he seems ...
Foreword
A Cathi Unsworth special: murder, magic and mayhem in wartime England
