Deftly Drawn Characters…
The sixteenth in the Hardcastle & Marriott series of historical mysteries finds Walter settling into his position and finding his feet when he suddenly gets promoted and delves head first into a top secret case. Vividly painted mystery with a solid sense of time and place, deftly drawn and memorable characters and an interesting and credible storyline. Most enjoyable.

Walter Hardcastle is the son of an English police detective in London at the advent of World War II and he is following in the footsteps of his retired father. He is moving up the ladder and soon finds himself assigned to a new division. A number of cat burglaries are bothersome because they are taking place at the home of people working on a top secret project for the war. They don't know if the cat burglaries are just that or are they the work of someone trying to gain access to confidential information that would undermine the war effort. Things get more serious when a couple is shot and killed during the execution of one of these burglaries. Walter Hardcastle has a case to solve and not much to go on.

I have always enjoyed police procedurals. I like to read about the everyday plodding through facts and clues to come to a solution to a case. Sometimes, it isn't easy to get to the truth. Sometimes, you hit dead ends. Sometimes, other crimes are committed and you have to lay one aside for the other. If you like a good old-fashion police procedural, I would recommend this one. I have to thank NetGalley for giving me an advanced look at this book.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher, Severn House for this Advanced Reader Copy and the opportunity to review “Hardcastle’s Secret Agent” by Graham Ison. All opinions are my own.

We’re following the fortunes of Walter Hardcastle here, in “Hardcastle’s Secret Agent,” the sixteenth in the series that has taken us to the beginnings of World War II. Walter is the son of that Inspector Ernest Hardcastle that readers met in the very first book, “Hardcastle’s Spy.” Walter has a lot to be compared to, but he’s proven to be up to the task.

Walter -- Wally -- is promoted to head up a very important CID job, much of it dealing with top secret components. War is coming, and spies are everywhere. The new DDI hits the ground running.

Housebreakers – readers already know they’re German spies – are getting into homes and looking for plans and documents. Hardcastle’s division is right in the middle of it. Then, one German spy murders two homeowners, leaving behind a clue. Hardcastle conjures up all kinds of reason for the deaths, all good reasons, because there is very little proof for why the murders actually occurred. The author is leading his detectives on a merry dance.

Amongst this is the Dunkirk withdrawal – an event “ripped from the headlines” plot used in the book. It’s becoming apparent that there’s more at stake here than a murder investigation. And through it all readers get the personal stories, the bombings that have started, the rationing that has already begun. Mr. Ison uses his knowledge of the times to great effect, underscoring our appreciation of the time and place.

Besides the search for the housebreaker/spy, there are other stories; the murder of a prostitute takes up quite a bit of Hardcastle’s time, for he stays busy interviewing her Army husband and sundry others. This did seem like quite a bit of filler. But dogged police work is dogged police work, for our German spy is apprehended and all explained very neatly. I didn’t find “Hardcastle’s Secret Agent” quite as entertaining as earlier books in the series, but do look forward to seeing how the inspector will face the future.

This is the second book I read in this series and it's excellent. A gripping historical mystery full of twists and turns, it kept me hooked and entertained till the end.
The mystery is solid and full of twists and turns. It's whodunnit and a spy story at the same, exciting and solid.
The characters are fleshed out and Walter Hardcastle, Ernst Hardcastle's son, is a clever detective and I liked him.
The author is a good storyteller and he delivers a very entertaining story.
The historical background is vivid and well researched.
I read the author died in 2020 and I assume this will be the last book. I'm sad because Walter Hardcastle series had a lot of potential and it could have a become a favorite.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Ernest Hardcastle and Sgt.Marriot investigated crimes during The Great War. Now Marriot is the Deputy Assistant Commissioner of CID and Hardcastle has been retired for nine years. The Hardcastle mysteries continue with Ernest’s son Walter taking the lead. It is 1939 and England is on the brink of war. Wally has been promoted to V Division, which includes areas that would be subject to bombing and attractive to German intelligence. There have been several robberies in the homes of employees of the Alan Moore factory, which has been working on a new submarine. Only insignificant trinkets were stolen, leading Wally to believe that a German spy may be involved. Pressure to solve these thefts increases when a couple is killed during one of the robberies.

As Hardcastle settles into his new position he is joined by Sgt. Jack Bradley. Looking into the murders, they discover that the couple were not who they seemed. While he supposedly worked for Alan Moore, there is no record of his employment. To their friends, they appeared the perfect couple but their cleaner paints a different picture. Conversations with the neighbors reveals little about their backgrounds and clothing in their closet contains German labels. When Hardcastle is called into New Scotland Yard he finally receives some answers that may help find the answers he needs as England has now declared war on Germany.

Graham Ison’s story takes you to the gun emplacements erected to protect England, the offices of New Scotland Yard and MI5 as they prepare for war and the dance clubs where young men and women enjoy what time they have before they are called to war. This is a mystery that is entertaining and atmospheric and should appeal to fans who enjoyed Foyle’s War. I would like to thank NetGalley and Severn House for providing this book for my review.

September 1939 A spate of burglaries concern DDI Walter Hardcastle and his team. But soon a double murder occurs, is it related to the burglaries or not, but months pass without an arrest. Then a body is discovered in the Thames which might belong to a German spy. Soon it is the summer of 1940.
An enjoyable police procedural and crime story with its hint of espionage.
An ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Before I became a reviewer, and earned (I hope) the privilege of being sent books and .mobi files by publishers, I had been a lifetime library user. Crime Fiction was my first and last love, and in my regular Saturday afternoon trawl through the shelves, there were certain authors whose names I always sought out. In no particular order, these would include Jim Kelly, Phil Rickman, John Connolly, John Sandford, Val McDermid, Mark Billingham, Jonathan Kellerman, James Lee Burke, Graham Hurley, Christopher Fowler - and Graham Ison.

The Graham Ison books were slimmish-volumes, usually the Brock and Poole series, but my favourites were always the Hardcastle books. Ernie Hardcastle was a London copper in and around the years of The Great War. He could come over brusque in his dealings, but other might use the word 'avuncular'. He distrusted innovations such as the telephone, but had a true copper's nose for villains. A couple of his books are reviewed here, but inevitably, 'time, like an ever-rolling stream, bears all its sons away..' Thankfully, in Hardcastle's Secret Agent, Ernie is still with us, but long since retired, and the Hardcastle concerned is his son Walter, now a rising star in the Metropolitan Police.

We are, as ever, in London, but it is 1940. The Phoney War is over, and the Luftwaffe are targetting industrial sites they believe to be involved in making parts for military aircraft. When several important employees of one such factory are burgled - clearly by an expert - but with nothing other than trinkets stolen, Hardcastle believes he may be on the track of a German spy on the look-out for plans, blueprints or important military information. Hardcastle has to deal with The Special Branch, but finds them about as co-operative as they were with his father a couple of decades earlier. This has a certain tinge of irony, as part of the author's distinguished police career was spent as a Special Branch Operative.

The search for the German spy withers on the branch, but Hardcastle has other fish to fry. A prostitute - or at least, a young woman who was free with her favours -  has been found beaten to death, and the hunt for her killer takes Hardcastle into military quarters.

Eventually, Walter Hardcastle gets both of his men, and on the way we have a vividly recreated world of an England struggling to come to grips with a new world war. Not one that is being fought far away on some foreign field, but one which is brought to their very hearths and homes every single night. Hardcastle's Secret Agent is published by Severn House/Canongate Books and will be out on 1st May.


Sad to relate, Graham Ison died suddenly in late 2020 before he could complete this book. It was finished with the help of his son Roger. Graham Ison was prolific, certainly, and critics might argue that he stuck to a reliable formula in each of his series, and never ventured into unfamiliar territory. Neither was he a darling of the crime fiction festival circuit, but I suspect after decades working as a policeman that never bothered him. What he was, however, was a reliable name for readers who bought his books and - importantly - library borrowers, who knew that they could rely on him for a story well told, and if his words took them into familiar territory, then that was nothing to be ashamed about.

"Hardcastle's Secret Agent" brings World War II in England to life.

In a far more entertaining manner than a history book, author Graham Ison's police procedural reels back nearly eight decades to describe London during the conflict: nightly air raids, blackouts and the threats posed by loose lips.

Newly promoted Divisional Detective Inspector Wally Hardcastle is trying to solve a double murder. with no more evidence than a single unlined leather glove. Wally is the son of Ernest Hardcastle, star of nine police procedurals author Graham Ison set around World War 1,

Ison has retired Ernie. a pipe-smoking, plain-spoken, opinionated policeman, leaving Wally to make his own career while constantly fielding the question, "How's your father?"

This has always been a quietly enjoyable series, mirroring Foyle's War in the way it frequently explores crime and policing on the Home Front during wartime. Previously the novels, each complete in themselves, have mainly been set during 1914-1918 and the First World War, whereas this latest reflects life in and around London in 1939 on the eve of the Second World War. Detective Inspector Walter Hardcastle, following in the footsteps of his eminent policeman father Ernest, and under the orders and benevolent supervision of Charles Marriot, now Deputy Assistant Commissioner of CID at Scotland Yard. has to contend with spates of burglaries and break ins that could amount to espionage and treason. Hardcastle uses brains not brawn, refusing to accept the easy and obvious, as the story builds to its climax.

The story opens on September 2nd 1939 - the day after the outbreak of World War II - with a German spy searching for secret documents in a house in London. Newly promoted Detective Inspector Walter Hardcastle discovers that there have been three similar burglaries at the homes of employees of a company involved in the building of a new submarine. Matters come to a head when, during another break-in, the German spy shoots the owner of the house and his wife.
It turns out that the dead couple were not who they seemed and Hardcastle is told that the dead man was an agent of MI5 - Britain's military intelligence. However, six months passes and the double murder remains unsolved.
To add to Hardcastle's problems, a young prostitute is found murdered in her flat in the summer of 1940 and a week later one of her friends is found strangled. Now, with two double murders to solve, he sets a trap for the killer of the young women while his investigating team come up with a plan to catch the German spy.
This is a solid police procedural (the author was a serving police officer for 30 years) mixed in with fascinating details about life and work in Britain during the first year of World War II.
My thanks to the publisher, Canongate Books, Severn House and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book in return for an unbiased review.