It’s a great premise for a thriller series, and a potent combination of genre elements. On the one hand, you’ve got ground-level crime and corruption of a large British city, and on the other hand, you have all the wartime challenges that World War II comes with. Jolly good start, Mr. Nickson.
A New Partner
Cathy’s news might be a break in a case the SIB has struggled with for some time. She’s located a key figure surrounding the case of a stolen army petrol tanker and precious fuel needed for the war effort. It’s also a link that might bring them closer to arresting a dangerous deserter and black-market ringleader, Jackie Connor, whom they suspect is behind the theft. But Cathy’s elation at her discovery is short-lived when she finds her estranged brother, Dan Marsden, standing in the SIB office.Though he’s always claimed to be a mere civil servant in London, it turns out Dan is in fact a member of MI5. Specifically, he’s part of something called the “XX Committee,” a fledgling counterintelligence unit focused on turning German spies into double agents. He’s been sent to Leeds to track Jan Minuit, a Dutch engineer-turned-spy who escaped custody and may be targeting key industrial sites: Kirkstall Forge and the Avro aircraft factory in Yeadon.
Having grown up in Dan’s shadow all her life, Cathy isn’t particularly happy to see him returning to his Leeds roots, especially since she believed he couldn’t get away from them fast enough when they were younger. For his own part, Dan is also unenthusiastic about the arrangement, especially taking on a dangerous, clever spy with no backup from MI5. But personnel are stretched thin, and being a local kid makes him the man for the job, so he might as well make the best of it.
As Cathy and the SIB team scramble for leads, the situation is becoming more dire. Minuit is charismatic and dangerous, with the skills to infiltrate factories or even signal their locations to the Luftwaffe. They don’t know how much progress he’s made towards completing his mission, or if anyone in the area is helping him.
The Right Mix of Good Storytelling
At its core, “No Precious Truth” is a solid police procedural thriller set in the tense early days of the biggest war in history. Added to this is Nickson’s in-depth understanding of the Leeds area, which he mines for our benefit in every chapter.“No Precious Truth” makes the streets and people of 1940s Leeds come alive. This isn’t too surprising, since Nickson’s previous books delve into different periods of the area, such as the Richard Nottingham series (1730s), the Tom Harper series (1890s), and the Simon Westow series in the 1820s.
Something I found refreshing in “No Precious Truth” was Nickson’s choice to make Cathy a fundamentally competent person, first and foremost, and not have her fixate on internal emotional turmoil or possible personal issues. Her past was neither easy nor glamorous by any stretch, but those details merely flesh out her character rather than define it. Like the way she saves a child from a potentially deadly accident, Cathy treats the rescue as a fact of her past, merely a thing that happened.
Having said that, Nickson also shows Cathy can be very vulnerable and insecure in a heavily male-dominated field in a time that wouldn’t be very open to her presence. But it’s her competence and the way she gets results that wins over most of her teammates. After all, there’s a war going on, and there are much more important things afoot than identity issues.
Based on this first novel, color me impressed. I’m looking forward to the next installment of the Cathy Marsden series and, hopefully, many more after that.
