To Hell and Back is my introduction to Ekins and his Cheif Inspector for Collingswood of CID, Scotland Yard. Set in the 1880's when fingerprints were not yet used in building a case you might take to court, persistence and flashes of insight were about the only tools law enforcement had available against criminals. I'm this instance, the criminal is a perfect villain -- a Satanist gentleman who brutally murders young women on holidays for his Dark Lord (Walpurgis and All Hallow's Eve). The tension is much the water than what one expects in a n historical procedural. I HAD to finish it because I could not have gone to sleep until certain confinements were resolved.Excellent character development and milieu setting. May have been my first by this author but won't be my last.