Deathwatch

The setting is London just before the turn of the century, but Harrison's third mystery featuring the veteran detective-sergeant Joseph Bragg and the toney young constable James Morton has a distinctly modern air. The Home Office has assigned its Special Branch to investigate recent union activity, but when the body of an undercover officer is found impaled on the spiked railing of Allhallows Church, the coroner puts Bragg on the case. Then Bragg is framed on a rape charge and it's up to Morton, with the assistance of a feisty young female reporter, to find out who is stirring things up and why. Elements of industrial and international espionage, military technology, romance and even a suggestion of partisan terrorism build to a high-flying, balloon-chasing climax in this tale that's a period piece only in its trappings. January 31