***BEST CRIME BOOKS OF 2021 – THE TIMES/SUNDAY TIMES******CRIME BOOK OF THE MONTH – THE TIMES***’Savage, beautiful, mesmeric…a very special book.’ CHRIS WHITAKER, AUTHOR OF WE BEGIN AT THE END’Extraordinary…a career-defining performance.’ THE TIMES/SUNDAY TIMES’This is crime writing of the highest quality’ DAILY MAILSOHO, 1935. SERGEANT LEON GEATS’ PATCH. A snarling, skull-cracking misanthrope, Geats marshals the grimy rabble according to his own elastic moral code. The narrow alleys are brimming with jazz bars, bookies, blackshirts, ponces and tarts so when a body is found above the Windmill Club, detectives are content to dismiss the case as just another young woman who topped herself early. But Geats – a good man prepared to be a bad one if it keeps the worst of them at bay – knows the dark seams of the city. Working with his former partner, mercenary Flying Squad sergeant Mark Cassar, Geats obsessively dedicates himself to finding a