Coming next May – months away, I know, but it’ll be here before we know it – you’ll be able to meet Woman Police Sergeant Cathy Marsden, seconded to the Leeds squad of the Special Investigation Branch for the duration of the war.

The SIB was real, and still exists, broadly investigating that area where military and civil crime meet, and there was a fair bit of it back then. But that’s not their focus this time…

It’s 1941, with things looking bleak. When Cathy’s older brother Dan arrives, an intelligent youung man who’d disappeared down to London as soon as he could to become a civil servant, he has a new job for them. It turns out he’s not quite the civil servant he claimed on his annual visits home; he ended up in MI5 and was the recruited to work for the XX Committee, a brand-new unit charged with turning German spies caught trying to enter the country into double agents. But one in his charge has escaped and is heading for Leeds to sabotage the war effort.

They have to catch him before he can act. Failure is not an option.

The cover copy: As the war rages across Europe, Police Sergeant Cathy Marsden’s life since she was seconded to the Special Investigation Branch has remained focused on deserters and home-front crimes. Until now.

Things take a chilling turn when Cathy’s civil servant brother, Dan, arrives from London with a dark secret: he is working for the XX Committee – a special MI5 unit set up to turn German spies into double agents. But one of these agents has escaped and is heading for Leeds, sent to destroy targets key to the war effort. Suddenly Cathy and the squad are plunged into an unfamiliar world of espionage and subterfuge.

With the fate of the country and the war in the balance, failure is not an option, and Cathy must risk everything, including her own life, to stop a spy.

And the very wonderful cover:

Meanwhile, please don’t forget that Them Without Pain is still brand-new and itching for you to read it. One reviewer called it my “best Westow yet” and who am I to disagree. All your favourite outlets and libraries will have it…