Morag McKendrick Pippin Blood Moon over Britain

Blood Moon over Britain

Morag McKendrick Pippin

Leisure, Dec 2005, $5.99, 352 pp.

ISBN: 0843955821

By December 1942, the war looks bleak for Britain, as the Americans may prove too late to save them. The rest of Europe has fallen, or meekly signed a non aggression pact, while the Luftwaffe seems to be winning the air war, the U-Boats, the naval war, and the ground front, going General Rommel's way. Publicly, except for Churchill, there seems to be no hope. However, a top secret project at Bletchley Park has provided a possibility to those involved, as the German Enigma Code has been broken, and decoding messages 7 has given an edge to the allied forces.

Though the local cops ruled it a suicide, Scotland Yard Special Branch Inspector Alistair Fielding, treats the death like a homicide. He interrogates those who knew Graham Mason, starting with his cousin Cicely Winterbourne, who works at Bletchley Park. When a second suspicious death related to the Enigma Code occurs, Cicely believes someone wants a secret kept hidden. She wants to trust Fielding, who she is falling in love with, but the first law of espionage is trust no one. Cicely risks her life to uncover who would kill to insure that certain secret remains interred.

This excellent historical espionage police procedural contains a powerful atmosphere, which paints an intriguing duality of how the British feel about the war, though nothing seems to be going right, there is a feeling fostered by Churchill that they will win. The first paragraph above is the scenario incorporated inside the second paragraph, by following the professional investigation of Fielding, contrasted with the amateur sleuthing of Winterbourne. The romance just adds to the case matchmaking relationship between them. Readers will treasure this finest hour World War II thriller.

Harriet Klausner