SOHO LONDON, WINTER 1960: A YOUNG BOY’S SUICIDE, A VICIOUS MURDER – THE WHIFF OF CORRUPTION IN A CESSPOOL OF VICECHIEF INSPECTOR RAKE may be bent, but he’s not crooked. With his marriage crumbling, his career nose-diving and his bowels erupting he is put on the immolated impresario case.

To add to his troubles, the key witness is JOHN DEAKIN, notorious throughout the seedy netherworld of the clubs, pubs and dives of Soho, and possibly the policeman’s only friend. DEAKIN has some negatives that show gangland boss NOEL DEEMING in an extremely poor light.

DEEMING unleashes his lieutenant DANBY and sets him upon DEAKIN. Things career out of control as DEEMING becomes increasingly florid and excessive; DANBY loses faith and RAKE struggles to hold on to his sanity.

As winter turns to spring, with the case threatening to unravel, RAKE stands at a crossroads, knowing that each direction may only lead to another crossroads, or perhaps even a literal, dead end. Set against the backdrop of London’s West End, when it really was the capital of vice and villainy, TONY HOCKLEY has peopled his novel with characters, real and imagined, each with a story to tell as they journey through this corrupted milieu.

These are the forlorn, “with eyes turned inward in sour contemplation”, colliding with one another like marionettes in an alien landscape. .