A brand-new author, Nap Lombard, for the British Library Crime Classics series. Written as a light-hearted and fun wartime mystery, despite the gruesome subject, this is one of only two detective novels jointly-written by Pamela Hansford Johnson with their first husband, Neil Stewart, under the pseudonym ‘Nap Lombard’ - a long overdue rediscovery.

‘“I should imagine this was murder, too, because it would be very difficult to build yourself into a heap of sandbags and then die…”’

In the blackout conditions of a wintry London night, amateur sleuth Agnes Kinghof and a young air-raid warden have stumbled upon a corpse stowed in the walls of their street’s bomb shelter. As the police begin their investigation, the night is interrupted once again when Agnes’s upstairs neighbour Mrs Sibley is terrorised by the sight of a grisly pig’s head at her fourth-floor window.

With the discovery of more sinister threats mysteriously signed ‘Pig-sticker’, Agnes and her husband Andrew – unable to resist a good mystery – begin their investigation to deduce the identity of a villain living amongst the tenants of their block of flats.

A witty and light-hearted mystery full of intriguing period detail, this rare gem of Golden Age crime returns to print for the first time since its publication in 1943.

Publication date: 10/02/21

Author: Nap Lombard

Brand: British Library Publishing

Number of pages: 288 pages

Binding: Paperback

Dimensions: 190 x 130 mm