Cut (Max Eden Crime 1):

October 1942: Three young women on war-work are operating a pair of narrow boats on the Grand Union Canal from London to Birmingham. Then a girl was raped and murdered…

October 2005: DC Max Eden has transferred from the Metropolitan Police in London to the Warwickshire Police at Nuneaton, a sleepy 'Middle England' town, following a messy affair that had resulted in disciplinary proceedings for Max. Then a body is found buried in a shallow grave by the canal near Nuneaton. Max discovers that these two deaths are intertwined and this leads to further deaths as the investigation unfolds and Max's relationships with JC, a crime reporter on the local paper, and with Judy, married with two children, causes personal and professional problems for Max.

Maxine (Max) Eden is black, lesbian, Jewish and, obviously, a woman, born in a poor London neighbourhood to Ethiopian Jewish immigrant parents, who tragically died in a malicious fire when Max was eleven, leaving Max an orphan in local authority care. After troubled early teenage years Max was fostered in a loving and inspiring family and, coupled with attendance at the excellent local comprehensive school, she found a sweet spot in her life, as she also came to terms with her sexuality. With this background it might be expected that Max would experience prejudice in the police force, especially on transferring from cosmopolitan London to a small town in Middle England but though there was some subtle prejudice she again finds she had landed in a relatively benign environment and even finds she had acquired some champions, not because of who and what she is, but due to her undoubted, though off-beat, investigation skills, and despite her messy love-life which sometimes threatens her professional life.

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