BAD PENNY BLUES

London 1959: Police Constable Pete Bradley has done one year in the force and dreams of moving up. His destiny arrives when the body of a young woman is dumped on the banks of the Thames. She's the first in a series of murders whose naked victims are left in and along the river. Pete's search for the phantom killer will lead him deep into London's underbelly as the 1960s start to swing.

Meanwhile Stella Reade, an art student living in bohemian Ladbroke Grove, is woken by terrifying nightmares that echo the last hours of the murdered women – all of whom have been plucked from the streets around her home. Streets where fascists and Teddy boys, migrants and anarchists chase illicit thrills with gangsters and lords.

Bad Penny Blues is inspired by the ‘Jack the Stripper' case of 1959-65, which sparked the biggest manhunt in Metropolitan Police history but was never solved.

Cathi Unsworth is an English writer and journalist. After working for Melody Maker and Bizarre, she began writing novels, publishing The Not Knowing in 2005 and The Singer in 2007. She is the editor of the anthology London Noir.

Reissued by Strange Attractor Press in December 2020 with a new introduction by Greil Marcus.