I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review, thank you!

Princes Gate is the first book in the Frank Merlin series.

I like books set in London, even better when it's in a historical setting. Set at the early days of World War Two the tension is palpable. When a servant of the American Embassy is found murdered, it's immediately clear this isn't going to be an easy investigation.

The story was OK, but a bit too much 'at the end everything that's ever mentioned in this book fits in the murder case' for me. The character of inspector Merlin fits the default description for inspectors in novels. He's alone (his wife died), he's got some kind of physical abnormality, a drinking problem and a boss who's all about statistics and diplomacy. Nothing new here. The story is a kind of classic whodunit, nothing too original but entertaining still.

I did have some problems with the writing though. It didn't always feel smooth and it didn't always work for me, unfortunately. Nothing really bad or wrong, just some sentences I thought a bit odd (or not reading easily). Like:

"However, in an area of water near the bridge, at the point where the sharp glare of the daylight became subsumed in the dark shadow of the bridge, the Colonel's attention was caught by an object which, because of the intermittent dazzle, appeared as if caught in the flashing beam of a semaphore light."

I haven't decided yet if I will try another book in this series...

This isn’t really the type of book I usually go after. I prefer more adventure, razing across the globe, finding lost treasure. In this book they are trying to find some lost gold, just not some ancient treasure, well it is from the beginning ancient, but that’s beside the point. Right now it’s Stalin’s gold that someone has managed to take and Stalin wants it back and when he want something…he really do everything to get it back. Throw in the British police force and some bad Russian villains and of course the people that have the gold then you have the book Stalin’s Gold.

Stalin’s Gold is Mark Ellis second book and the sequel to Princes Gate which I haven’t read and sometime you feel like you missing something when you jump in and read a book in a series but I had no problem getting into the story. There were some hints about the first book but it didn’t bother me at all. Frank Merlin is the main character in this book and I got Foyle's War (tv-show) vibes about him. For just like Foyles he is a police that is denied to serve in the war because they need him in the force which didn’t make him happy. He’s an ordinary man, widower, that is dating a Polish girl and because of that he gets involved in the case when a friend to her brother disappear.

It’s very well written, the only problem I had from time to time was keeping track of all the characters which got a little tougher because of all the Russian and Polish name. It’s a bit hard to read a book when you suddenly see a name you can’t place. But in the end it got clearer and the book wrapped up nicely and I will probably in the future both read more books by Mark Ellis and read the first one about Frank Merlin.

Thank you Netgalley for providing me with a free copy for an honest review