Glimpses Back In Time

The Automobile Assassination by M.J. Porter is a marvelous historical, cosy crime novel. It is the second book in the Erdington Mysteries but can be read as a stand-alone.

The reader is transported back to 1944 in Birmingham. The war is in its final few months but there are still black outs and rationing to contend with. Black outs are the perfect cover for crimes.

The Automobile Assassination is a play on the automobile association or AA which features at the heart of the novel. In 1944 there were AA boxes dotted throughout Britain to help the motorist in trouble.

Having grown up near Birmingham, I was very familiar with the locations – I used to ride the number 9 bus past the AA headquarters on the Hagley Road on a daily basis in the 1980’s. Likewise the Stew Pony (long gone) is very familiar to me.

All the characters were likable and well drawn. 1944 without any modern technology relied very much on legwork and the good old copper’s nose to solve crimes. The members of the police are easy to picture with the author’s descriptions.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Automobile Assassination. I think it would make a fantastic early evening television series – any producers out there, please take note!

This was my first book by M.J. Porter but I shall certainly be reading more.

I received a free copy from Rachel’s Random Resources for a blog tour. A favourable review was not required. All opinions are my own.

JULIA WILSON

The Automobile Assassination

A 1940s mystery

Erdington, September 1944

As events in Europe begin to turn in favour of the Allies, Chief Inspector Mason of Erdington Police Station is once more prevailed upon to solve a seemingly impossible case.

Called to the local mortuary where a man’s body lies, shockingly bent double and lacking any form of identification, Mason and O’Rourke find themselves at Castle Bromwich aerodrome seeking answers that seem out of reach to them. The men and women of the royal air force stationed there are their prime suspects. Or are they? Was the man a spy, killed on the orders of some higher authority, or is the place his body was found irrelevant? And why do none of the men and women at the aerodrome recognise the dead man?

Mason, fearing a repeat of the cold case that dogged his career for two decades and that he’s only just solved, is determined to do all he can to uncover the identity of the dead man, and to find out why he was killed and abandoned in such a bizarre way, even as Smythe demands he spends his time solving the counterfeiting case that is leaving local shopkeepers out of pocket.

Join Mason and O’Rourke as they once more attempt to solve the impossible in 1940s Erdington.

Purchase Link – https://books2read.com/TheAutomobileAssassination

Author Bio – MJ Porter is the author of many historical novels set predominantly in Seventh to Eleventh-Century England, as well as three twentieth-century mysteries. Raised in the shadow of a building that was believed to house the bones of long-dead Kings of Mercia, meant that the author’s writing destiny was set.

Social Media Links –

Website: www.mjporterauthor.com/www.mjporterauthor.blog   

Twitter: https://twitter.com/coloursofunison

Facebook: www.facebook.com/MJPorterauthor

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mj-porterauthor/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/m_j_porter/

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/coloursofunison/

BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/mj-porter

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.co.uk/MJ-Porter/e/B006N8K6X4/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7163404.M_J_Porter

Linktr.ee: https://linktr.ee/MJPorterauthor