The Limehouse Heresy
A priest hangs dead inside a Limehouse mission chapel. Nearby, a message has been written upon the wall, calculated to turn neighbour against neighbour and transform murder into something far more dangerous.
The Juwes are the men that will not be blamed for nothing.
An old message associated with the Jack the Ripper murders is being used to forge hatred against an innocent community, but to what end?
The story begins where the previous case ended. Inspector Morven Flint is bound inside a burning warehouse, the flames closing around him, whilst the enigmatic Edwin Locke lies motionless after being struck by a poisoned dart. Neither man should be walking away from the warehouse, but impossible things have become disturbingly familiar. Soon, Flint and Locke are sent to investigate the death of Father Doherty.
The priest appears to have been killed for his faith, but the evidence refuses to support the story laid so carefully before them. The dead man's collar has been placed where it will be found. Witnesses recall an apparently supernatural hooded figure leaving the chapel. Rumours spread rapidly through streets already divided by poverty, suspicion and old grievances.
Someone is sowing hatred in Limehouse for a purpose of his own.
As Flint and Locke move between Catholic missions, Jewish meeting rooms and the hidden communities clustered beside the Thames, they uncover a campaign of fear in which every act of violence has been arranged for an audience. Behind it stands an enemy they know only too well. Mordecai Shrike continues to torment the city, and his schemes have grown bolder, more theatrical and considerably more ambitious.
With the brutal Isiah Ketch carrying out Shrike's orders, the red-eyed boy still in his grasp and Spring-Heeled Jack demanding repayment of an inconvenient debt, Flint finds himself surrounded by men who treat London as machinery to be manipulated. Property, religion and human resentment have all become tools in the same design.
Set among the crowded streets, riverside warehouses and interwoven communities of Victorian Limehouse, The Limehouse Heresy is the fourth Flint & Locke mystery, combining gothic horror, conspiracy and dark intrigue with the unsettling suggestion that some crimes are committed not to conceal the truth, but to manufacture one.
White, Michael: -
Ex-drummer, Ex-software author and Ex-flares wearer Michael White was born and lives in the northwest of England. In a previous life he was the author of many text adventure games that were popular in the early 1980's. Realising that the creation of these games was in itself a form of writing he has since made the move into self-publishing, resulting in many short stories and novellas. Covering an eclectic range of subjects, the stories fall increasingly into that "difficult to categorise" genre, causing on-going headaches for the marketing department of his one man publishing company, Eighth Day Publishing.
Having accidentally sacked his marketing director (himself) three times in the last two years, he has now retired to a nice comfortable room where, if he behaves himself, they leave him to write in peace.
In his spare time (!) Michael likes to listen to all kinds of music, and is a big fan of Steven Moffat, whether he likes it or not.
Michael is currently working on several new projects and can be contacted on my own website at http: //mikewhiteauthor.wordpress.com or via twitter on @mikewhiteauthor
