September 1915 and the country is in the second year of a war. Hannah Merrill helps run her Aunt Violet’s bookshop in Covent Garden and one morning, rumours of an air raid the night before make her worry for the state of the bookshop. She finds the building unharmed, but the manager’s poor judgement has resulted in the business failing.
Hannah discharges him, a decision her aunt is ambivalent about, and intends to take over the bookshop with their junior assistant, Archie. However, when Hannah arrives for work the next day, she finds her best friend in a wing-back chair in the reading corner – dead.
Distressed by the murder of her friend, she meets Detective Inspector Farrell, the policeman in charge of the investigation, who is less than happy with her story. Why was Hannah’s best friend inside the locked bookshop at night with her paper knife thrust into her heart?
The previous spring, the Germans started a campaign of using Zeppelins to fly over the Channel and bomb the English coast. That the enemy could make direct attacks on the English people was something no one could imagine, and the resulting terror this created was immense.
Reactions were mixed. While the Government’s war machine ran public campaigns to expand the army and manufacture weapons, the man in the street feared a potential invasion and public drunkenness reached worrying proportions. The licensing hours were drastically reduced, and it was made illegal to buy a round of drinks in a public house. King George V also made a pledge that the royal family would henceforth not imbibe alcohol.
The number of English, Australian and Canadian soldiers flooding into London streets created a festival atmosphere as young men from the battlefields arrive on leave eager to spend their pay. Their presence in the public houses and dance halls attracted young women taking advantage of their new freedom to enjoy themselves when they still could.
This so-called khaki fever was considered a further fall in moral standards and a real threat to family life. Women in quasi-military uniform accompanied by police officers were sent to patrol the streets to accost unaccompanied young women and intimidate them into returning home.
It is in this atmosphere of uncertainty and danger, Hannah enlists her aunt’s help, determined to find out who killed Lily-Anne and clear her own name.