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.