Book Review: After the Mourning

Reviewed By: Catherine Thompson - RAM

After the Mourning     Amazon US TPB Amazon US HC Amazon UK PB Amazon UK HC Amazon Canada TPB Amazon Canada HC
Barbara Nadel
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Historical   Thriller
Series: Frank Hancock # 2
Headline, $24.95 trade paperback, 276 pages

London, 1940: Undertaker Francis Hancock is, of course, no stranger to death, not simply by virtue of his profession but also because of his years in the trenches of the Great War. But the death of a young Gypsy girl, Lily Lee, hits him particularly hard. He’s recently buried her elder sister Rosie, and he has come to know Lily and her family. Finding the girl in a pool of blood with her throat slashed is disturbing, to say the least. And not far away from her body is that of Sergeant Williams of the Military Police, a man whom some say had an eye for Lily.

But Williams’s commander won’t have it that his man raped and murdered the Gypsy girl. Frank Hancock wonders, too, for the doctor reports that Lily wasn’t raped, though the knife in Williams’s hand is surely the weapon that killed her. Frank finds himself looking into Lily’s death, almost by happenstance, until he stumbles on a greater conspiracy, one that could mean the end of all those he holds dear.

Barbara Nadel is best known for her Turkish-set Cetin Ikmen series. After the Mourning is the second in the Frank Hancock series, and I’m quite disappointed that I somehow managed to miss the first one. I’ve always had an abiding interest in World War II, fostered by my late grandfather. In this book, Nadel seems to capture the essence of that fear-filled time when German bombers flew regularly over London, doing their best to destroy not only the important docks in the east end but to destroy the British morale as well. After the Mourning is a gripping read.

Catherine Thompson - RAM

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Catherine Thompson - RAM