1939, Cambridge. The opening weeks of the Second World War, and the first blackout - The Great Darkness - covers southern England, enveloping the city. Detective Inspector Eden Brooke, a wounded hero of the Great War, takes his nightly dip in the cool waters of the Cam. The night is full of alarms, but in this Phoney War, the enemy never comes.But daylight reveals a corpse on the riverside, the body torn apart by some unspeakable force. Brooke investigates, calling on the expertise and inspiration of a faithful group of fellow'nighthawks' across the city, all condemned, like him, to a life lived away from the light. Within hours The Great Darkness has claimed a second victim. War, it seems, has many victims. But what links these crimes of the night?

Jim Kelly was born in 1957 and is the son of a Scotland Yard detective. He went to university in Sheffield, later training as a journalist and worked on theBedfordshire Times, Yorkshire Evening Press and theFinancial Times. His first book,The Water Clock, was shortlisted for the John Creasey Award and he has since won a CWA Dagger in the Library and the New Angle Prize for Literature. He lives in Ely, Cambridgeshire.