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Nighthawk #4
The Cambridge Siren
Spring 1941. It is the third year of war, and when the siren sounds the people of Cambridge trudge to the city's six public bomb shelters. Crowded, smoky, often raucous, the shelters have become a way of life for the poor. At dawn the body of a young man is found in a shadowy corner of the Trinity Shelter, one of three on the city's great open space - Parker's Piece.
Detective Inspector Eden Brooke searches the body and finds no wallet or papers, save for a cinema ticket dated six months earlier. PC Vanessa Hill - a recruit to The Borough police from Girton College - uses her skills in fine art to sketch the dead man's face for a poster. An autopsy reveals the only clue to his death is the wound left by a hypodermic needle in the back of his neck. Brooke has a very puzzling case on his hands .
Detective Inspector Eden Brooke searches the body and finds no wallet or papers, save for a cinema ticket dated six months earlier. PC Vanessa Hill - a recruit to The Borough police from Girton College - uses her skills in fine art to sketch the dead man's face for a poster. An autopsy reveals the only clue to his death is the wound left by a hypodermic needle in the back of his neck. Brooke has a very puzzling case on his hands .
384 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 20, 2025
15 people are currently reading
29 people want to read
About the author
Jim Kelly
32 books134 followersJim Kelly is a journalist and education correspondent for the Financial Times. He lives in Ely with the biographer Midge Gilles and their young daughter. The Water Clock, his first novel, was shortlisted for the CWA John Creasey Award for best first crime novel of 2002.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
December 9, 2025
Another winner in this great WWII historical mystery series. Author Jim Kelly offers up to his readers a page-turning look at the daily threat of war (via bombings), the on-going fear of invasion coupled with the realization that crime -- including crimes that aren't just a simple case of murder -- doesn't stop for any reason that keeps me coming back for more. This one has far-reaching implications that will task "nighthawk" detective Eden Brooke's deductive abilities to the fullest.
August 25, 2025
WW2 mystery set in CAMBRIDGE
The Cambridge Siren is a tale of strange goings on in WW2 Cambridge. The body of a young man is discovered in an air raid shelter. It is followed over the next weeks by two others… Each appears to be a suicide. But are they, or were they first killed (somewhere unknown) and were the bodies then dumped?
Detective Inspector Eden Brooke leads the investigation, but it is difficult and painstaking work. At the same time another investigation needs his expertise…There is a local factory making lenses for submarine periscopes. Security is tight but faulty lenses keep on finding their way to the shipyards in Barrow-in-Furness where submarines for the navy are built. If one were installed in a submarine it could lead to a dangerous mishap in the firing of a torpedo. Brooke leads a secret team looking for the saboteur but, again, his efforts appear to be in vain. He simply can’t work out where the lenses are being interfered with. He is certain of only two things. First they leave the factory in perfect condition, and second some are not in pristine condition when they reach Barrow…
He finds out the name of the first air raid shelter victim (a breakthrough in itself). And he is led to a small hotel in the countryside where several of the permanent residents are young men who have failed their call up medicals. They have jobs in the community, but all live in the hotel. And, perhaps strangely, they all seem to have a fair amount of money to spend in the local pubs and restaurants. Brooke feels they have a lifestyle above their obvious means. He suspects some sort of scam, but can’t work out what it might be…
The three investigations (the murders, the sabotage, and the possible scam) proceed in parallel.
Then Brooke, and his team, have a bit of luck – and the plots begin to unravel.
The Cambridge Siren is very much of its time and place. Both Cambridge and WW2 come through loud and clear. Not a rip roaring thriller – but a good insight into police work as it used to be. Recommended.
The Cambridge Siren is a tale of strange goings on in WW2 Cambridge. The body of a young man is discovered in an air raid shelter. It is followed over the next weeks by two others… Each appears to be a suicide. But are they, or were they first killed (somewhere unknown) and were the bodies then dumped?
Detective Inspector Eden Brooke leads the investigation, but it is difficult and painstaking work. At the same time another investigation needs his expertise…There is a local factory making lenses for submarine periscopes. Security is tight but faulty lenses keep on finding their way to the shipyards in Barrow-in-Furness where submarines for the navy are built. If one were installed in a submarine it could lead to a dangerous mishap in the firing of a torpedo. Brooke leads a secret team looking for the saboteur but, again, his efforts appear to be in vain. He simply can’t work out where the lenses are being interfered with. He is certain of only two things. First they leave the factory in perfect condition, and second some are not in pristine condition when they reach Barrow…
He finds out the name of the first air raid shelter victim (a breakthrough in itself). And he is led to a small hotel in the countryside where several of the permanent residents are young men who have failed their call up medicals. They have jobs in the community, but all live in the hotel. And, perhaps strangely, they all seem to have a fair amount of money to spend in the local pubs and restaurants. Brooke feels they have a lifestyle above their obvious means. He suspects some sort of scam, but can’t work out what it might be…
The three investigations (the murders, the sabotage, and the possible scam) proceed in parallel.
Then Brooke, and his team, have a bit of luck – and the plots begin to unravel.
The Cambridge Siren is very much of its time and place. Both Cambridge and WW2 come through loud and clear. Not a rip roaring thriller – but a good insight into police work as it used to be. Recommended.
October 30, 2025
I love this series. In fact I love all three series written by Jim Kelly. He's a fine writer and puts other more celebrated writers to shame with his plotting, characterisation and denouements.
April 5, 2025
This is the fourth in Jim Kelly’s excellent series set in Cambridge during WW2, featuring senior police detective Eden Brooke.
Brooke served in The Great War, but had the misfortune to fall prisoner to the Turks. The Ottomans, rather like their Japanese brethren twenty years later, were brutal – not to say sadistic – captors, and Brooke’s eyes were permanently damaged. He and his wife Claire are certainly ‘a family at war’, however. Their daughter Joy’s husband is a submariner, while son Luke is away training in Scotland for some ‘hush hush’ activity.
Brooke has plenty on his hands. A dead man is discovered in a city air raid shelter. Cause of death? Wrists neatly slit. Too neatly, according the medical officer; suicides rarely if ever manage to slit the second wrist properly after self-inflicting the first wound. And why does the unidentified man have Brooke’s telephone number inked on his hand? Hundreds of miles away, on board his submarine, Lieutenant Ben Ridding has to examine a faulty periscope, which recently caused two torpedoes to miss their target by a considerable margin. He finds that one of the lenses has been purposely set askew. It was manufactured at the Vulcan works in Cambridge. A coded message to the Admiralty is passed on to Brooke, who begins an investigation.
Kelly has a magnificent eye (and ear) for period detail. Here, Brooke takes a witness to the morgue to investigate a corpse.
“Brooke led Mrs. Brodie to the table: twenty strides, the metal Blakey’s* on his shoes striking the quarry tiles. It was a ceremony with all the subtle horror and indecent haste of an execution.”
*Blakey’s were little metal plates nailed onto the leather soles and of shoes to preserve them
Another two dead men are discovered, each in the vicinity of a shelter. The dead men found in the shelters have two things in common. Each has minor disability, thus eliminating them from service in the forces, and each had stayed at The Laurels, a rather strange guest house outside the city. Despite posting a police ‘spy’ inside the Vulcan works, the latest batch of periscopes reaches its destination in Barrow-in-Furness. From a shipment of twelve, two have been sabotaged.
Jim Kelly’s other two crime fiction series – The Philip Dryden Ely novels and the Peter Shaw books, set a little to the north in Kings Lynn, are dominated by the pull of the the landscape. Eden Brooke’s world is more intimate, centred on the college gateways and narrow city byways of Cambridge, but he is ever aware that just beyond the city lights (now dimmed by wartime regulations) is the primeval vastness of The Fens, now largely drained, but still desolate and sparsely populated.
“The Fens, as Brooke had been taught by his father in a lecture illustrated by a map which still hung in his old bedroom at Newnham Croft, lay in three levels: North, Middle and South. The north stretched to Lincoln across the silty fields south-west of the Wash.”
Despite the apparent failure to solve the mystery of the periscopes, Brooke turns his attention to The Mystery of The Laurels. If that sounds like a story from a Sherlock Homes collection, it is appropriate because, using an attention to detail worthy of the great man, Brooke discovers a complex and lucrative conspiracy whereby wealthy young men can pay to avoid being called up into the armed forces. In WW1, it took Britain over two years to resort to conscription, but it was re-introduced in 1939, almost immediately after war was declared. In solving the murders, however, Brooke has inadvertently trodden on some very important toes. Involved, although rather at a tangent to the call-up conspiracy, is a notable British scientist connected to a major defence project. As in aside, it is worth noting that while Hitler was obsessed with what have been called ‘wonder weapons’ (at the expense of solid and reliable military kit) Churchill was fascinated by rather weird developments. One such features in this novel. If you Google Project Habbakuk you will discover more.
Once again using a potent blend of observation and intuition, Brooke solves the periscope problem, and the book ends with a joyful family reunion, but one tinged with uncertainty. Brooke is an endearing character, a deeply thoughtful and ascetic man in some ways, but with unlimited courage and a steely sense of duty. The Cambridge Siren is published by Allison & Busby, and available now.
Brooke served in The Great War, but had the misfortune to fall prisoner to the Turks. The Ottomans, rather like their Japanese brethren twenty years later, were brutal – not to say sadistic – captors, and Brooke’s eyes were permanently damaged. He and his wife Claire are certainly ‘a family at war’, however. Their daughter Joy’s husband is a submariner, while son Luke is away training in Scotland for some ‘hush hush’ activity.
Brooke has plenty on his hands. A dead man is discovered in a city air raid shelter. Cause of death? Wrists neatly slit. Too neatly, according the medical officer; suicides rarely if ever manage to slit the second wrist properly after self-inflicting the first wound. And why does the unidentified man have Brooke’s telephone number inked on his hand? Hundreds of miles away, on board his submarine, Lieutenant Ben Ridding has to examine a faulty periscope, which recently caused two torpedoes to miss their target by a considerable margin. He finds that one of the lenses has been purposely set askew. It was manufactured at the Vulcan works in Cambridge. A coded message to the Admiralty is passed on to Brooke, who begins an investigation.
Kelly has a magnificent eye (and ear) for period detail. Here, Brooke takes a witness to the morgue to investigate a corpse.
“Brooke led Mrs. Brodie to the table: twenty strides, the metal Blakey’s* on his shoes striking the quarry tiles. It was a ceremony with all the subtle horror and indecent haste of an execution.”
*Blakey’s were little metal plates nailed onto the leather soles and of shoes to preserve them
Another two dead men are discovered, each in the vicinity of a shelter. The dead men found in the shelters have two things in common. Each has minor disability, thus eliminating them from service in the forces, and each had stayed at The Laurels, a rather strange guest house outside the city. Despite posting a police ‘spy’ inside the Vulcan works, the latest batch of periscopes reaches its destination in Barrow-in-Furness. From a shipment of twelve, two have been sabotaged.
Jim Kelly’s other two crime fiction series – The Philip Dryden Ely novels and the Peter Shaw books, set a little to the north in Kings Lynn, are dominated by the pull of the the landscape. Eden Brooke’s world is more intimate, centred on the college gateways and narrow city byways of Cambridge, but he is ever aware that just beyond the city lights (now dimmed by wartime regulations) is the primeval vastness of The Fens, now largely drained, but still desolate and sparsely populated.
“The Fens, as Brooke had been taught by his father in a lecture illustrated by a map which still hung in his old bedroom at Newnham Croft, lay in three levels: North, Middle and South. The north stretched to Lincoln across the silty fields south-west of the Wash.”
Despite the apparent failure to solve the mystery of the periscopes, Brooke turns his attention to The Mystery of The Laurels. If that sounds like a story from a Sherlock Homes collection, it is appropriate because, using an attention to detail worthy of the great man, Brooke discovers a complex and lucrative conspiracy whereby wealthy young men can pay to avoid being called up into the armed forces. In WW1, it took Britain over two years to resort to conscription, but it was re-introduced in 1939, almost immediately after war was declared. In solving the murders, however, Brooke has inadvertently trodden on some very important toes. Involved, although rather at a tangent to the call-up conspiracy, is a notable British scientist connected to a major defence project. As in aside, it is worth noting that while Hitler was obsessed with what have been called ‘wonder weapons’ (at the expense of solid and reliable military kit) Churchill was fascinated by rather weird developments. One such features in this novel. If you Google Project Habbakuk you will discover more.
Once again using a potent blend of observation and intuition, Brooke solves the periscope problem, and the book ends with a joyful family reunion, but one tinged with uncertainty. Brooke is an endearing character, a deeply thoughtful and ascetic man in some ways, but with unlimited courage and a steely sense of duty. The Cambridge Siren is published by Allison & Busby, and available now.
July 21, 2025
If you enjoy historical mysteries, I don’t think you can do any better than read Jim Kelly’s Nighthawk series, which is set in Cambridge during World War II. They’re not only great stories – clever and intricate – they’re also so well written you can imagine yourself to be there. The period details are never overblown or laboured, all the characters are believable, the writing is crisp and the pace is perfect. The series launched in 2018 with The Great Darkness and Book 4 – The Cambridge Siren – has just been published.
The protagonist in the Nighthawk series is a detective called Eden Brooke, who is a senior officer in the tiny Cambridge police force known as The Borough. Horribly injured in Palestine in the First World War, his eyes are so sensitive to light he needs to wear different coloured lenses at different times of day to protect them. He’s also an insomniac, so is happy to work at night and has developed an informal network of contacts across the city who also work unsociable hours – the Nighthawks.
The Cambridge Siren is set in October 1941 and opens with the discovery of the body of a young man in an air raid shelter. At first sight it looks like suicide, although, unusually, he’s managed to slit both his wrists neatly. There’s nothing to identify him but written in ink on the palm of one hand is a telephone number – that of Eden Brooke. Brooke gets permission to put an artist’s sketch of the man in the local paper, appealing for help to identify him, and when his fiancée comes forward, saying that he’d left Cambridge a year ago, the police can at least begin to investigate, visiting his lodgings and talking to his neighbours. Then, a few days later another young man is found dead in another air raid shelter. No phone number this time, but it’s all starting to look a bit suspicious.
Intertwined with this investigation is the serious matter of the sabotage of submarine periscopes that are being manufactured in Cambridge. Brooke has his hands full trying to get to the bottom of both cases.
I found this book really difficult to put down. It’s not action-packed and the pace isn’t breakneck. It’s just a really excellent and gripping story, told brilliantly well. Kelly’s knowledge of Cambridge during WW2 seems absolutely spot-on. The book fizzes with small details that make the city come alive in your imagination – from the empty colleges to greyhound racing on the fens. You really feel you’re getting a sense of what things were like.
The mysteries are good. The deaths of the young men are part of something far bigger and more sinister than was first thought; and the periscope sabotage is incredibly tricky to untangle. You just want to keep turning the pages to get to the bottom of it all. And alongside all that, Brooke, his family and his Nighthawks are completely believable, as are the villains.
There’s been a 5-year gap between Book 3 (The Night Raids) and The Cambridge Siren, but I’m delighted to see there’s another book due to be published next year. I can’t wait.
Review by: Cornish Eskimo, Oundle Crime
The protagonist in the Nighthawk series is a detective called Eden Brooke, who is a senior officer in the tiny Cambridge police force known as The Borough. Horribly injured in Palestine in the First World War, his eyes are so sensitive to light he needs to wear different coloured lenses at different times of day to protect them. He’s also an insomniac, so is happy to work at night and has developed an informal network of contacts across the city who also work unsociable hours – the Nighthawks.
The Cambridge Siren is set in October 1941 and opens with the discovery of the body of a young man in an air raid shelter. At first sight it looks like suicide, although, unusually, he’s managed to slit both his wrists neatly. There’s nothing to identify him but written in ink on the palm of one hand is a telephone number – that of Eden Brooke. Brooke gets permission to put an artist’s sketch of the man in the local paper, appealing for help to identify him, and when his fiancée comes forward, saying that he’d left Cambridge a year ago, the police can at least begin to investigate, visiting his lodgings and talking to his neighbours. Then, a few days later another young man is found dead in another air raid shelter. No phone number this time, but it’s all starting to look a bit suspicious.
Intertwined with this investigation is the serious matter of the sabotage of submarine periscopes that are being manufactured in Cambridge. Brooke has his hands full trying to get to the bottom of both cases.
I found this book really difficult to put down. It’s not action-packed and the pace isn’t breakneck. It’s just a really excellent and gripping story, told brilliantly well. Kelly’s knowledge of Cambridge during WW2 seems absolutely spot-on. The book fizzes with small details that make the city come alive in your imagination – from the empty colleges to greyhound racing on the fens. You really feel you’re getting a sense of what things were like.
The mysteries are good. The deaths of the young men are part of something far bigger and more sinister than was first thought; and the periscope sabotage is incredibly tricky to untangle. You just want to keep turning the pages to get to the bottom of it all. And alongside all that, Brooke, his family and his Nighthawks are completely believable, as are the villains.
There’s been a 5-year gap between Book 3 (The Night Raids) and The Cambridge Siren, but I’m delighted to see there’s another book due to be published next year. I can’t wait.
Review by: Cornish Eskimo, Oundle Crime
December 1, 2025
First book I’ve read from this author.
Cleverly plotted with enough action to keep me turning the pages.
A few minor quibbles:
- a completely unbelievable episode of the protagonist following a suspect on trains from Cambridge to Liverpool without being spotted.
- a gimmick about the hero detective’s eyesight which presumably applied in previous books about him
- the prose can feel as if it’s trying too hard to be true to wartime use of vocabulary.
But I’ll certainly read more by this author.
Cleverly plotted with enough action to keep me turning the pages.
A few minor quibbles:
- a completely unbelievable episode of the protagonist following a suspect on trains from Cambridge to Liverpool without being spotted.
- a gimmick about the hero detective’s eyesight which presumably applied in previous books about him
- the prose can feel as if it’s trying too hard to be true to wartime use of vocabulary.
But I’ll certainly read more by this author.
August 28, 2025
I forgot to check [again] if this was one of a series, but fortunately it could be read as a stand-alone without any problems. I enjoyed it.
October 26, 2025
First rate !
January 8, 2026
3.5 really. Good plot with two separate crimes in place. Interesting view of England a year into WWII.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews