Lead Me to the Slaughter — Graham Ison

Detective Chief Superintendent Tommy Fox is the raffish, cockney head of the Flying Squad who first appeared in The Home Secretary Will See You Now.

Back on more familiar territory in Lead Me To The Slaughter, Fox encounters a team of robbers going about their everyday business of robbing people. Such ‘blaggers' are bread and butter to the Flying Squad, and Fox is in his element jousting with them.

But Fox's men come across a body, appropriately at a ‘slaughter' - underworld slang for a place where stolen property is hidden - and what began as a simple robbery becomes rather more complex.

A combination of Fox's old-fashioned methods and his detective inspector's more sophisticated approach combine to bring the killer to book. But not before a wealth of fascinating petty villains have been ‘turned over' on the way.

Graham Ison taps that rich seam of characters who inhabit the twilight world of villainy: killers and con-men, robbers and thieves, forgers and fraudsmen, in a tale that any policeman will tell you exemplifies the extremes of tragedy and comedy that are to be found in real-life crime.