Jon Morgan is a retired police Superintendent and francophile who, it is said, has consequently seen almost everything awful that people can do to each other. He relishes quality writing in all genres but advises particularly on police procedure for authors including John Harvey and Jon McGregor. Haunts bookshops both new and secondhand and stands with Erasmus: “When I have a little money, I buy books; and if I have any left, I may buy food and clothes.”
Post War London – with a nod back to the Blitz. An age of hope, despite continued rationing, a new Elizabethan age but a nation and its capital city in ruins; crime and corruption are rife – in the police as elsewhere.
Starting with a daring post-office robbery, the biggest haul of cash until the Great Train Robbery, a decade later, masterminded by Billy Hill, a Soho based gangster extending his tentacles into crime as well as legitimate business, corrupting people and politicians alike.
Those at the top of the criminal food-chain including an undercover police officer, quickly and brutally dispose of their accomplices to avoid ‘loose lips.’ – There really is no honour amongst thieves. The U/C is actively involved in these murders – after all, it is not as if he has not killed before, both in war and after.
The novel really revolves round the U/C Dave Lander and the families of those whose deaths he was involved in. It takes him through more criminal activity, under pressure from his handlers and the gangsters he frequents. His inner conflict is a significant driver of the plot.
The story takes us through the late 1950s race riots, the rise of the slum landlords including the infamous Peter Rachman. Lander is eventually an outcast in the eyes of his accomplices and the Met. How he survives and tries to atone, makes for a stunning denouement.
If you have not read any of Dominic Nolan’s fiction, be prepared to be completely absorbed as he creates an entire world around you. As in his 2021 novel, Vine Street, this is historical crime fiction at its very, very best.
The destruction of the war years; the continuing privation and poverty; the rampant sexism; prostitution; pimping and, of course, drugs all feature. The casual and not so casual racism. The title of ‘White City’ works on several levels: the grime; the smog; the crime, corruption and the cultural atmosphere of the 1950s are superbly evoked. Notting Hill – ‘Brown Town’ is faithfully described with its occupants, the objects of exploitation and violence – not all of its population are prepared to take this lying down and some, no angels by any means, are amongst Rachman’s enforcers.
The harassment of tenants by these ‘enforcers,’ many of whom are the movers and shakers in the populist attacks on the Windrush generation, newly arrived in the ‘motherland.’ Fascists rising again championed by the now released Oswald Mosely. Rillington Place and its infamous occupant briefly feature.
The characters and their ironic nicknames – Tedd ‘Mother’ Nunn for one of the most brutal top gangsters add some bleak humour to the gritty milieu in which the novel is set.
Many of the events described have parallels in, or consequences for, our modern world for those who care to look, including poverty, racism, institutional corruption, poor quality housing, a government by, and for, the monied and influential.
Whilst the big picture is absorbing, it is the little details which make the difference – recycling the copses of the deceased into the thriving Smithfield meat trade. Nolan has dug deep into the period and delivers an absolutely credible novel of 1950s Britain. By turns, brutal, drab and drear, hopeful, tragic, mesmerising, breathtaking, and astonishing.
After reading it, much like Vine Street, you will be left breathless, rather bereft and wanting much much more from this superb wordsmith.
