BRASS LIVES

Only the faintest hint of the coming war touches the people of Leeds in 1913, but ordinary crime abounds.

Deputy Chief Constable Tom Harper is bored with his desk job after years on the streets, but he’s proud of his wife, Annabelle, who’s active in the suffragist movement, and his soon-to-be-engaged daughter, Mary, who runs her own business. New York gangster Davey Mullen, who grew up in Leeds, brings trouble after he returns to visit his father after surviving being shot 11 times by a rival gang. When Louis Fess, another American gangster, hits town, a sharp copper notices, checks out his checked luggage, and finds a pistol. Fess, who’s part of the gang that failed to kill Mullen, soon turns up dead too quickly to offer more than some tentative hints of evidence. His murder becomes just one of many connected crimes Harper and his men labor to solve: more murders, gun thefts, an arson in the building that houses Mary’s business, and an attempt to shoot a police officer. A sudden diagnosis of possible early onset Alzheimer’s for Annabelle crushes the Harpers’ hopes for the future. Still, when Mullen’s da is murdered and he’s beaten and left for dead, Harper goes back to working the streets in an attempt to solve the dizzying web of crimes.

Harper’s ninth case is an excellent mystery buoyed by characters you care about.