DEAD IN THE WATER

In this World War II thriller, a British detective tries to investigate a series of possibly connected murders that involve espionage and illicit art dealing.

In 1942, DCI Frank Merlin of Scotland Yard has his hands full—London is brimming with American soldiers and the crimes they often commit and stymied by the fact that the United States military is permitted to autonomously govern its own affairs. A series of murders—at least one of which may have been committed by an American soldier—occurs in quick succession. Tomas Barboza, a Spaniard working for MI6, is found murdered, his throat slit. Then Frederick Vermeulen is shot in the head neatly, a mark of professional precision. Vermeulen was also a British spy and had infiltrated the Germans as a double agent. Moreover, he was brokering a shady art deal for Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian, an extravagantly rich oil tycoon. The art in question: two authentic works by Leonardo da Vinci almost certainly stolen from a Jewish family by the Nazis. The seller is Leo Van Buren, whose “business empire was taken over lock, stock and barrel” by the Germans after they “swept into Holland.” Van Buren turns up in the Thames, another murder victim. In this ambitious tale, readers are challenged to connect the dots between these different crimes which may or may not be entangled within a single, conspiratorial skein. Ellis constructs a tableau of London during the war that is as captivatingly vivid as it is edifying, one riven by crime and strained by the presence of foreigners not quite subject to British law. In addition, the author deftly depicts the luridly murky art market that emerged during the war, one perfect for cultural predators. But the plot is overly complicated—readers will need an Excel spreadsheet to properly track all the characters and the subplots to which they belong. This narrative density becomes so prohibitive that it finally hampers the story’s energy and momentum.

An intriguing but uneven crime tale.