A Death in the Afternoon by Julie Anderson – Book Review

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Summer 1948

London swelters amid post-war reconstruction, while continued rationing and the black-market fuel the rising crime wave. The empires of gangland bosses grow and thrive, protected by corruption and bribery.

During a party in Clapham a student nurse from the South London Hospital for Women and Children dies in a fall from a balcony. Is it an unfortunate accident as the local police believe? Or something more sinister?

The nurse’s friends ask a newly qualified female detective constable to investigate, a woman who is facing difficulties of her own. Before long all are drawn into the criminals’ deadly games, as gangsters jostle for territory and power. With the solution almost within grasp, their lives are threatened and one of them faces a dreadful fate.

Can the others find her before it’s too late?

And what is the truth about…

A Death in the Afternoon?

Last spring I read and enjoyed Julie Anderson’s The Midnight Man so I was very excited to receive an advance copy of A Death in the Afternoon, the second book in her Clapham Trilogy. I have not been disappointed.

As with the first book, A Death in the Afternoon is set in the late 1940’s around Clapham Common and the South London Hospital which is now part of the recently formed National Health Service. Again the action is described in the third person through the eyes of friends Faye and Eleanor with the chapter headings telling us whose thoughts we are following.

As before, Julie Anderson has done well to capture the atmosphere of the time; featuring post-war austerity, immigration from the Caribbean Islands, changes in society, policing methods and attitudes. She also has a love of language from that era managing to include several expressions that I haven’t heard for many years including; “daft ’apeth”!

There is an interesting mix of characters including the blend of the three friends, Ellie, Beryl and Faye who have such different backgrounds. Whilst the first two are still at the hospital, Faye is now in the police force; suffice to say that she is not typical of the policewomen of the era. Julie’s writing style is easy to follow. The action moves quickly, getting very lively in the latter stages and the solving of the crimes is intriguing. Most threads are tied up nicely, leaving a few questions unanswered, presumably for the third book.

A Death in the Afternoon can read as a stand-alone novel but it frequently refers back to the previous book and would spoil the enjoyment of subsequently reading The Midnight Man. My advice is to read the books in order. I have awarded five stars.

Julie Anderson is a CWA Dagger-listed crime fiction writer and author. Her latest A Death in the Afternoon is the second in the Clapham Trilogy of mysteries, all set in South London in the 1940s. It follows Book One, The Midnight Man.

Julie has also written a trio of Whitehall thrillers, the last of which, Opera was long-listed for the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger 2023. This is the third in a series of political thrillers featuring Cassandra Fortune. Plague, the first, was published in September 2020 and Oracle, the second in May 2021. Julie has also written a two book series of adventure stories set in southern Spain during the 13th century. The first of these, Reconquista, was long listed for Mslexia Children’s Novel, 2016.

Before becoming a crime fiction writer, she was a senior civil servant, working across a variety of departments and agencies, including the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. Unlike her protagonists, however, she doesn’t know where (all) the bodies are buried. She writes crime fiction and arts reviews for Time and Leisure Magazine and is a co-founder and Trustee of the Clapham Book Festival.

Born in Worcestershire Julie now lives in south London where her latest crime fiction series is set, returning to her first love of writing historical fiction with The Midnight Man, and her most recent book, A Death in the Afternoon.

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