Blackstone and the Endgame: An Inspector Sam Blackstone Mystery

More action than detective story, Spencer’s 10th mystery featuring Insp. Sam Blackstone (after 2012’s Blackstone and the Great War) starts better than it finishes. A prologue dated December 16, 1916, finds the Scotland Yarder on the run and reduced to fighting for survival as a London street person. The main narrative, which opens a week earlier, reveals how Blackstone got into this fix. The new head of Special Branch, Superintendent Brigham, tells Blackstone to deliver £25,000 in cash to a German known only as Max in exchange for information on U-boats. Max has asked for Blackstone by name, and he’s forbidden Blackstone to have any backup. As Blackstone fears, the exchange late one night at a London dockyard doesn’t come off as planned. Now a fugitive, Blackstone embarks on an unlikely journey that reunites him with a Russian spy from a previous outing. The introduction of a notorious historical figure doesn’t increase the plot’s plausibility. (Nov.)