The Reckoning

Memories of a terrible injustice come back to haunt John Madden, a retired police inspector who maintains a semidetached relationship with Scotland Yard. Though the story begins in the aftermath of World War II, it is an event from the earlier European conflict that sparks off a succession of murders. Madden gets involved when his name appears in a letter left by the first victim. It takes a rise in the body count for him to make the connection with a court martial in which he had defended, unsuccessfully, a soldier accused of desertion . . . Rennie Airth keeps us riveted with a plot rich in memorable characters and high on tension.