The Complete Detective Suzie Mountford Mysteries: Books 1-5

Suzie Mountford #1-5

by John Gardner

London, 1940. The Luftwaffe assault is relentless. London is in ruins. Normal life has been suspended, but murders still need to be solved . . .

Detective Suzie Mountford
At just 22, Detective Suzie Mountford knows she has a lot to prove. She’s only been promoted to CID because all the experienced male officers have been called up to fight. Her parents don’t think it’s suitable for a woman to be ‘mixed up in all that business’ and, when her picture appears on the front page of all the dailies, her superiors think she’s got above her station too.

But no-one has factored in Suzie’s grit and determination. As bombs fall nightly over London, she has no idea if she’ll make it to the next morning — which only makes her even more keen to catch the killers who stalk the city streets under cover of the blackout.

The Setting
Camford Hill Police Station is situated deep in West London, far from the well-heeled streets of Knightsbridge and Kensington. Its CID is run by DCI Tony Harvey, known as Big Toe, who runs a tidy department and doesn’t appreciate being lumbered with another girl — “Far as I’m concerned, women police officers are good for two things: making the tea and typing.” The Balvak Twins rule the streets of Camford where they run loans, protection, gambling, girls, and every bit of villainy that goes on. They know all the tricks of the trade to escape justice and often run rings the police.

1648 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 24, 2025

About the author

Before coming an author of fiction in the early 1960s, John Gardner was variously a stage magician, a Royal Marine officer and a journalist. In all, Gardner has fifty-four novels to his credit, including Maestro, which was the New York Times book of the year. He was also invited by Ian Fleming’s literary copyright holders to write a series of continuation James Bond novels, which proved to be so successful that instead of the contracted three books he went on to publish some fourteen titles, including Licence Renewed and Icebreaker.

Having lived in the Republic of Ireland, the United States and the UK, John Gardner sadly died in August of 2007 having just completed his third novel in the Moriarty trilogy, Conan Doyle’s eponymous villain of the Sherlock Holmes series.

Reviews

[elizabeth mcguire · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well two stories, showing the pluck of folks during theWW2.

Suzie Mountford finds herself seconded as a Trainee Sargent in the London Met.
This has a new and unheard of happening. Most of the men just treated them as secretaries, cleaners and to do their shopping.
Them Suzie finds herself in with the elite squad, who deal with murder and mayhem. Things change at a rate of knots and Suzie finds she is being trained as a permanent ficture. Women will be taking a more senior role after the war and Suzie and another couple of girls find themselves in the thick of war torn London and all the mayhem from gangsters to murder and spies.
Characters are well written as are the stories. Happy to read more by this author.

[stan sheehan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good Reads.

Enjoyed the plots, the twist and turns. Very believable situations.
Only observation I have, book 4, "saw the stop lights of the car in front" I believe they had not been invented in the early 40's????.

[Dorothy Hoffer · Rating 1 out of 5]

99 cents for 5 books was too much!

Would have given zero stars if given the option. The only mystery is why I even read 85 pages. Will delete immediately.