CITY UNDER SIEGE

Malta at the heart of the Mediterranean war in 1941 is under siege by German and Italian bombers. Rumours that a British soldier murdered a Maltese teenager cannot go unchallenged without damaging loyalty to Britain. Now Britain will cooperate with Ireland to find the killer and Detective Inspector Stefan Gillespie is sent to Malta. He had been ferrying documents between Dublin and war-torn London when Ireland's greatest actor was arrested in Soho, after the brutal murder of a gay man. But Stefan is looking at a series of murders stretching across Britain and Ireland. The Soho victim was a police informant, spying on nationalist friends, and the killer is probably a British soldier, but the identical murder in Malta makes investigation essential. The British believe the killer is an Irishman and that's the result they want. They would like Stefan to give it to them, but in the dark streets of Valletta there are threats deadlier than German bombs. 320pp, paperback.