Counterfeit Corpse: Detective Ward of England's Special Crime Division

By John M Poignand

In the Shadow of War, a Brilliant Detective Confronts a Mastermind Born of the Blitz.

1950s Britain: a nation caught between ration-book realities and burgeoning Cold War anxieties. When a headless body is found gruesomely displayed on a village war monument in Kettlewell, Yorkshire, Detective Inspector Michael Ward is reluctantly pulled back into the line of fire. Still recovering from a violent shootout and wrestling with a fractured romance, the Cambridge-educated Ward soon realizes this is no ordinary murder. The grisly scene is a masterpiece of deception-a "counterfeit corpse" meticulously staged to secure an alibi for London's most ruthless gangster, Johnnie Knight.

What follows is a mesmerizing, high-stakes game of cat and mouse. Ward, a man of letters driven by a haunted sense of duty, faces his ultimate foil in Knight-a man of brutal action forged in the cruelties of wartime orphanages and the London docklands. As their pasts collide and the deception deepens, The Counterfeit Corpse delivers a gripping, atmospheric psychological thriller where the line between justice and vengeance is buried in the fog.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0FLF3HSHB
• ISBN13: 9798296154743
• Release Date: August 2025
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 308 Pages
• Weight: 0.91 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 9.0"