DI Ted Stratton

Inspector Ted Stratton returns in a mystery based on real events. It's 1950s London. Beautiful Diana Calthrop, last seen breaking hearts in Laura Wilson's The Innocent Spy as an icily daring MI5 operative in the finest couture, is looking a little tarnished, her famously catastrophic taste in men catching up at last. On the plus side, she has once again bumped into Inspector Ted Stratton, that sturdy, straightforward copper. Could he be her rescuer? First he'd have to rescue himself, and that's a long shot: With his wife dead and his children distant, Stratton's nursing his own depression like an old war wound. And while London never lacks for crime, there's one crime in particular-one ghastly series of them-that Stratton just can't shake. The Wrong Man is rooted in a real-life case, which has been dramatized several times, most successfully in the chilling 1971 film 10 Rillington Place, starring Richard Attenborough and John Hurt.

It's 1956 as the 4th Inspector Stratton mystery opens. The world is in turmoil-the Bikini Atoll, the Suez Crisis, the Hungarian Uprising-these are just some of the events Inspector Ted Stratton can't help but think about as he makes his way through a murder investigation. The murder victim is a young man in London whose bookshelves are filled with literature on spirituality and esoteric religions, and who had just recently left the Foundation for Spiritual Understanding, a New Age cult based in Suffolk. Traveling to Suffolk to investigate, Inspector Stratton encounters a community of fervent believers led by an enigmatic, charismatic leader, and a femme fatale with a shady past. As well as a twisty murder mystery, A Willing Victim is a portrait of England in the mid-fifties and a meditation on the dangerous power of faith.

This is the fifth volume in the award-winning Inspector Ted Stratton series, which opened during the London Blitz (with The Innocent Spy) and has now landed in the rainy summer of 1958. Detective Inspector Stratton is investigating the death of a rent collector-never a popular personage-in Notting Hill, a district seething with tensions between the new Caribbean immigrants and their white, working-class neighbors. Stratton has his suspicions, but a second body makes it clear: Race is at the heart of these murders. Like the rest of the series, The Riot is based on real events and characters, on which Wilson sheds new and revealing light. A compelling mystery and a fascinating dive into the London of the late 1950s, complete with cameo appearances by a few notorious celebrities.