The Detective Branch: A Pyke Novel

London, 1843. Pyke has been part of the Metropolitan Police's newly formed 'Detective Bureau' for six-months. Unsurprisingly Pyke is confronted by faceless opponents within the Bureau and the New Police who don't like his unconventional methods, his criminal past and his dubious law enforcement record. When the body of a policeman is found, it initially appears that the man has been killed while on duty in the course of a robbery that has gone wrong. But Pyke's investigations reveal that the policeman might have been murdered and the robbery offered as a ruse to cover-up what really happened. Then a tavern landlord is killed and a connection to the dead policeman is unearthed. Digging into both men's past, Pyke's investigative team unearth evidence of corrupt practices and connections to slum-lords and high-ranking City of London officials - as well as a policeman who has subsequently climbed to the top of the New Police.