Here’s a first class historical mystery. Mark Dawson’s The Black Mile takes place against the dramatic backdrop of the London blitz in 1940. Things are chaotic enough in the city, and plenty of people are dying, without the Blackout Ripper running around murdering prostitutes.

Charlie Murphy is the youngest son of a highly honored, almost legendary, London police detective, now a highly ranking officer. We first meet him in a squad of bobbies trying to put down an anti-Italian riot. Completely out of his element and disoriented, he ends up running away. Back at the station, he observes the abuse of some Italian prisoners by other policemen, and reports them, leading to the dismissal of two of them. This earns the anger of his older brother Frank, their superior.

Frank is a hard man, but no villain. A World War I veteran with facial scars from mustard gas, he orders his teenage daughter to stop seeing her Italian boyfriend, and she responds by running away. For the rest of the story he searches the streets for her, remorseful and terrified that she might be the next victim.

There’s also a newspaper man, only moderately honest, who sees the Ripper story as his ticket back to the front page. He knows things the police don’t, but he’s not sharing.

The most fascinating thing about this story (which is not to say the drama is weak—this is a book fit to be made into a thriller movie) is the depth of the character depiction. These are the kind of people we all know—essentially decent but flawed in various ways, caring for each other but wounded in their pride.

The prose slips occasionally, in terms of word choice. I noticed two instances where author Dawson repeated the same descriptive metaphor twice.

But those are minor problems. All in all a gripping, fully rounded, well-told story, which I recommend.

Cautions for language, violence, and sexual situations.