The jagged blast of high explosives rips through the evening air. In the sky over East London the searchlights criss-cross in search of the enemy. On the first night of the Blitz, a corpse is discovered in a van in the back streets of West Ham. Detective Inspector John Jago recognizes the dead man as local Justice of the Peace Charles Villiers. But a German bomb obliterates all evidence. Villiers was not a popular man, both powerful and feared. As the sirens wail, the detective must start matching motive to opportunity - and it doesn't help when his boss foists an intrusive American journalist on him. Jago soon discovers the dead man held many secrets, some reaching back to World War I. A lot of people wished Villiers dead - and an air raid is a good time to conceal a murder.

Detective Inspector Jago investigates, uncovering deception and betrayalAt first glance, the young woman found in the early hours of the morning where bombs have landed is just another casualty of the previous night's air raid. But when the post-mortem shows signs of strangulation, Detective Inspector Jago is called on to investigate. The dead woman is smartly dressed but carries no identification. However, a local engineering company reports a staff member has failed to appear at work that morning and the body is quickly identified as that of Miss Mary Watkins. DI Jago's initial interviews yield little fruit; no one can think of a reason why Mary would be murdered. But as the investigation continues DI Jago begins to uncover a trail of deception and betrayal.

Pacifists don't own revolvers. But Paul Ramsey does. And now he's dead. Fifty people squashed into a stinking public air-raid shelter all night – babies screaming, old ladies crying, no beds, not even a light to see by. When the all-clear siren sounds, people disperse to home and work. But one man remains. He’s Paul Ramsey, a young teacher, and he’s dead – stabbed through the heart. DI Jago quickly establishes that the victim was a pacifist, desperate to avoid military service. Why, then, was he carrying a loaded revolver in his pocket? Did he have enemies? Was he intent on harming someone – or even himself? Jago discovers that Paul isn’t the only pacifist whose convictions have been challenged. For some, anger and violence lie just below the surface. And despite Ramsey’s moral stance, it seems there were dark shadows in his life. In fact, more than one person might have had a motive for murder…

October, 1940. Bombs are falling on Stratford when air-raid warden Sylvia Parks sees a house with a shining light, in clear breach of the city's strict blackout rules. With no answer at the door she manages to break in, only to discover the body of a young woman, strangled to death with a stocking. For Detective Inspector John Jago, the scene brings back memories of the gruesome Soho Strangler, who murdered four women a few years ago but has never been caught - could there be a connection?

November 1940. Darkness descends and another anxious night begins for those tasked with guarding the industrial heartland of London from enemy attack. As a policeman patrols the Royal Albert Dock, something catches his eye - a man is sprawled awkwardly across a nearby barge, a dagger lodged in his back. Detective Inspector John Jago of West Ham CID discovers the victim was a dock worker by day and a Home Guard volunteer by night - and there are things even his wife doesn't know about his past. As Jago investigates the murder, As the investigation unfolds, Jago he uncovers a widening circle of secrets ranging across family tensions, the last war and a far-flung corner of the British Empire.

Armistice Day 1940. A time that stirs painful memories for The Blitz Detective John Jago given his service during the Great War. But it needs to be business as usual when he arrives at West Ham police station, and promptly finds himself despatched to Pimlico to investigate a suspicious death. A young man, Terry Watson, has been found in a back-yard Anderson shelter, battered about the head, and with two white poppies in his pocket. As their investigation delves into Watson's background to try and establish the killer's motive, Jago and his assistant DC Craddock find themselves knee-deep in Pimlico's shady underworld, and connections with Mosley's BUF party ... it will take all their skills to uncover the truth behind the pacifist's brutal death.

As dawn breaks on a chilly morning in November 1940, a car is found ablaze in an abandoned builder's yard a stone's throw from the Regent's Canal in Camden Town, north London. In the burnt-out vehicle police find the charred remains of a body. The victim is Les Latham, a commercial traveller for the Barings confectionery company. He liked to be known as Lucky Les, but it seems his luck has finally run out. DI John Jago discovers among Latham's belongings a mysterious photograph and some suspicious-looking petrol ration books that set Jago off on a murky trail of deceit, corruption and murder.

December, 1940. Christmas is coming, but the season of goodwill is overshadowed by the death and destruction of the Blitz. In London's Covent Garden, where the glamour of theatreland rubs shoulders with the bustle of the capital's biggest fruit and vegetable market, the war has closed the theatres and ruined the market trade. When a daylight air raid hits the Prince Albert Theatre in Drury Lane, rescuers find a man dying in the wreckage. But it wasn't the bomb that's ending his life - he's been stabbed, and with his dying breath he whispers what sounds like a fragmented confession. As Detective Inspector John Jago begins to investigate, there's an underlying question he must grapple was the murdered man himself a killer?

December 1940. New Year's Eve draws closer, but crowds will not be gathering on the steps of St Paul's Cathedral to celebrate. After a quiet Christmas, the area has suffered London's most devastating air raid since the start of the Blitz and waves of incendiary bombs have burnt the heart of British book publishing to the ground. Detective Inspector John Jago finds a desolate woman sitting among the ruins of her family business and must break the news - her husband's been found shot dead at their home in Soho. An antiquarian bookseller, he'd just acquired a mysterious volume which is priceless - and missing. Did someone covet it enough to kill for it? Obsessive collectors and unscrupulous dealers haunt Jago's descent into Soho's underworld, where he finds criminals are branching out in the shadows of the blackout.