The Eight of Coins

By Simon Maginn

Brighton, 1937 D I John Langan is looking for a missing German girl, Erika Loeb, who has seemingly run away from her home in Berlin. She's known to have reached her grandfather's shop in Brighton. But the shop is deserted: 'Closed due to illness', says a hand-written sign in the window. Meanwhile, Langan's child-like sister, Anne, is released from the institution she's spent her entire adult life in. She's a 'sweet thing, really', trusting, emotional, easily led. She wants to help, wants to fit in. 'Treat her as you would a nine-year-old girl,' says her friend Mrs Fallow, 'and you won't go far wrong.' But Anne is ill-prepared for the world she encounters. Innocently, she becomes involved in a fascist groupuscule, an off-shoot of Oswald Mosley's British Union, run by a local aristocrat, Lord Medway, and without understanding what she's doing or why, becomes a collaborator. She is romanced by Lord Medway's chauffeur, Ray Tovey, and D I Langan is increasingly anxious about her new friends. There's a fascist rally in Brighton, antisemitism is everywhere, and Anne seems to have got swept up in it all. And then Anne too goes missing... 'A detective and his sister and the creeping loss of civilisation in 1937... A marvel.' (Hubert Huzzah)

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0F66N2FRX
• ISBN13: 9798281143288
• Release Date: April 2025
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 240 Pages
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.6" x 6.0"