"The SoHo Strangler": (Series 1, Book 7)

By Wayne Gombar

London, 1986.
In the narrow streets of Soho, women begin to die quietly.
When a series of brutal strangulations targets sex workers in the heart of the West End, Detective Chief Inspector Evelyn Holloway is drawn into what appears to be a depraved serial killing spree. The tabloids are quick to name their monster. The city is eager for a simple explanation.
Holloway knows better.
The murders are too controlled. The scenes too deliberate. And the victims-dismissed by everyone else as expendable-share a past that was never meant to resurface. As Holloway digs deeper, she uncovers traces of a dormant intelligence network, one that once moved messages across Europe using couriers hidden in plain sight.
What begins as a homicide investigation becomes something far more dangerous: an audit of unfinished Cold War business.
As bodies accumulate and pressure mounts from above, Holloway finds herself confronting not only a killer, but the institutions that shaped him-and now seek to contain the truth he exposes. Surveillance photographs, coded ledgers, and a ruthless logic of "finalisation" reveal a system still willing to erase lives to protect secrets decades old.
When the killer is finally caught, the real battle begins.
Removed from the case and silenced by official narratives, Holloway is left with one undeniable conclusion: the war never truly ended-it simply learned how to hide. And when a final revelation implicates her own family in the shadow world she has spent her career policing, Holloway realises the danger is no longer confined to Soho.
The Soho Strangler is a dark, psychologically driven crime novel that blends procedural realism with Cold War espionage, exposing the moral cost of institutional secrecy and the violence required to maintain it.
The file may be closed.
But the reckoning has only just begun.

Author Bio
Wayne J. Gombar is the author of The Shadow Files, a crime and espionage series exploring the hidden intersections of institutional power, intelligence history, and moral accountability in postwar Britain and Europe. His work blends meticulous procedural detail with historically grounded Cold War narratives, examining how unresolved conflicts continue to shape lives long after official histories declare them finished.
Drawing on extensive research into intelligence operations, state secrecy, and bureaucratic decision-making, Gombar's novels focus less on spectacle than on consequence-how systems preserve themselves, how truth is managed, and how individuals are often sacrificed in the process. His protagonists navigate not only criminal investigations, but the political and ethical terrain that surrounds them.
Gombar's writing is noted for its psychological depth, restrained style, and commitment to realism, favouring plausibility over sensationalism. His stories are shaped by an interest in how institutions remember selectively, how narratives are constructed for public consumption, and how the past resurfaces in unexpected and often dangerous ways.
He lives in the United States and continues to research and write historical and contemporary fiction that interrogates power, memory, and responsibility.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0GHJH4G29
• ISBN13: 9798244393323
• Release Date: March 2026
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 212 Pages
• Weight: 0.64 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.0" x 9.0"