AN UNCOMPROMISING NOVEL ABOUT WAR, VIOLENCE, LUST AND MURDER
With the British Expeditionary Force in full retreat on the fertile fields of Northern France in May 1940, relentlessly being pushed back by the all conquering Wehrmacht, right to the edge of the English Channel, something needed to be done to slow the German's advance.
The BEF was desperate to buy time to evacuate the beaches. A small group of BEF and French soldiers were ordered behind enemy lines to gather information about the Wehrmacht. When they were attacked, in a cowardly act one of the soldiers, Alfred Spooner, fled and left his mates behind to fend for themselves.
With his self preservation paramount he was evacuated safely back to England, deserted, and carried out murderous attacks on defenceless women in and around London. One of his old army mates, Bluey McConnell, suspected Spooner was a serial killer. Outraged, he became obsessed in finding Spooner and made it his mission to hunt him down. Yet with war raging in Europe discovering this killer was like finding a needle in a haystack.
From England the trail leads to the D-Day landing beaches, Caen, Brussels and eventually Berlin. Which in 1946 was in virtual ruins, compounded by the four governing allied forces, France, USA, Britain and the USSR who were at each other's throats. Chaos reigned supreme, so once again Spooner found the perfect killing ground in this post war anarchy.