I want you to close your eyes and try to picture Gatsby’s parties. The corps of caterers have come and gone and left behind them a landscape of luxury. You have several hundred feet of canvas marquees and enough twinkling fairy lights to make a Christmas tree of Gatsby’s enchanted garden. And then there’s the…
Category: Jazz Age Mysteries
“A German Spy During the War” — The Real Jay Gatsby and a New York Spy Hunt
If you’ve read The Great Gatsby—or watched any of the movie adaptations — you’ll remember the scene. Before Nick Carraway ever lays eyes on his host, Jay Gatsby exists as this mysterious, elusive figure whispered over champagne glasses and jazz. We’ve already seen Daisy Buchanan jump out of her skin at the mere mention of…
The Nightingale Shore Mystery Part VI — Why Kill Florence?
Wrapping this up neatly is not a simple task. It’s January 1920, and fifty-five year old nurse Florence Nightingale Shore enters the carriage of a train on the London to Hastings line. Her friend Mabel who is seeing her off that day, sees a man in a brown suit enter the carriage just as the…
The Nightingale Shore Mystery Part V — Oil Matters
Rafael Farina, the ambitious new head of Mi5’s G4 Russian Section is on the 4th Floor at 4 Queen’s Gate, South Kensington. Ever since the British Prime Minister David Lloyd George had agreed to hold trade talks with the Soviet his work has tripled in volume. There was a time when he had just a…
The Nightingale Shore Mystery Part IV — Russians in St Leonards
If Chief Inspector Haigh had been confused by the serial spy capers of his first suspect, Ernest C. Brown, then the intelligence making it on to the desk of the victim’s cousin at Mi5, Rafael Farina, would have been more perplexing still — and also well above his pay grade. On the one hand, Florence…
The Nightingale Shore Mystery Part III — A Cousin at Mi5
It is January 1920, and Britain stands on a razor’s edge. While the government prepares to broker trade with Lenin’s Soviet regime, a bitter faction war is exploding behind the scenes: anti-communist hardliners and intelligence figures are frantically trying to crush the Bolsheviks. At the heart of this fractured shadow-conflict stands Florence Nightingale Shore’s brother,…
Victor Grayson & the Etaples Mutiny
On September 9th 1917 former Colne Valley Socialist MP and would-be revolutionary Victor Grayson (Charles Strange in the TV Series) arrived in Etaples Base Camp. A few hours later a mutiny was in full swing.
Shadows, Spies, and Socialism: The Baffling Disappearance of Victor Grayson
In late September 1920, former MP and firebrand socialist Victor Grayson vanished into thin air, leaving behind one of Britain’s most haunting political mysteries. According to Hilda Porter, the manageress of his London apartment building, Grayson had been receiving biweekly cash deliveries from two uniformed men. On his final day, two enigmatic strangers arrived, spent…
Victor Grayson MP – A Timeline Biography
Timeline September 5, 1881: Albert Victor Grayson is born in Liverpool. Just a few months previously, the Grayson family had been living on Sidney Street in the Poplar district of London — scene of an infamous siege. In the late 1800s and early 1900s the Poplar district was home to the largest Russian émigré community…
The Nightingale Shore Mystery Part II
Section D and Russian Intrigue So far, we’ve learned that Captain Ernest Brown was not only questioned about the Nightingale Shore murder, he was also questioned about two other serious incidents: the murder of a police officer in Turkey, and spying on subs in Glasgow’s Faslane Naval Base. In the first of these, the Nightingale…