Leeds, 1941. As the war rages across Europe, Police Sergeant Cathy Marsden’s life since she was seconded to the Special Investigation Branch has remained focused on deserters and home-front crimes. Until now. Things take a chilling turn when Cathy’s civil servant brother, Dan, arrives from London with a dark secret: he is working for the XX Committee – a special MI5 unit set up to turn German spies into double agents. But one of these agents has escaped and is heading for Leeds, sent to destroy targets key to the war effort. Suddenly Cathy and the squad are plunged into an unfamiliar world of espionage and subterfuge. With the fate of the country and the war in the balance, failure is not an option, and Cathy must risk everything, including her own life, to stop a spy.

Kirkus Reviews has called it “A rousing wartime drama with a protagonist determined to fight both the enemy and the stigma against female police officers.” You can read it all here.

Publishers Weekly says “As always, the author’s meticulous period detail and tender character development help this rise above similar fare. Here’s hoping Nickson has another long-running series on his hands.” I’ll take that. Read the entire review here.

From Booklist: “A brave, plucky, likable heroine, a twist-a-minute plot, and heart-wrenching details
about the effects of war make this a good choice for fans of historical wartime mysteries.”

Lovely word from Between the Covers: “Chris Nickson’s skill lies in his ability to convince us that we are standing beside his characters and sharing their world. In this case, it is Cathy Marsden’s wartime Leeds, with its rationing and privation, its fear that clear nighttime skies will be a gift to the Luftwaffe, and the ever present fear in the hearts of local women that their father, husband, brother, son or boyfriend will be the next name on the mounting list of casualties.” Read it all.

There’s a blog tour for No Precious Truth over the next week. Here’s the first review. The whole thing is here. “No Precious Truth is a cat and mouse chase, and as the story gathers pace, the importance of finding Minuit and the people connected to him becomes much clearer. There is a definite sense of tension, which is heightened by the threat of an attack on the city, and I was really invested in this search the whole way through the novel.”

More from the blog tour: “No Precious Truth is an evocative read rich in historical detail. The setting that Chris Nickson, the author, depicts in the narrative skilfully transported me to the gritty underbelly of Leeds in wartime, which I really enjoyed. ” Read it all from Novel Delights here.

Another from the blog tour here: “The cat and mouse pursuit is very gripping. The relationships are very well drawn. We cheer for Cathy when she scores successes, in the face of hostility from one or two senior colleagues.  She is fighting more than a war: she’s also fighting misogyny. 

She’s also a relatable heroine, trying to snag nylons from the Americans, if we can mix our metaphors, and concerned about more things “going on the ration”.

I look forward to reading more of her exploits. “

Yorkshire Bylines has a glowinng review of the book. You can read it all here: “Nickson’s deep understanding of the streets of Leeds brings the city to life, immersing readers in an atmosphere where historic streets feel as familiar as our own whether you know Leeds or not. His descriptions are visceral, embedding the reader in a landscape where the looming threat of air raids hangs heavy, and where every step through the city’s wartime streets is fraught with danger.”

A glowing review from the Morning Star. Read it all here, but this will give you a flavour: “Cathy takes to the work like a natural, and tries not to think of the day the war ends and she has to go back into uniform. But the job becomes suddenly more complicated when a figure from her past turns up with a story about an escaped spy.Nickson’s use of historical detail is just right: thorough research is lightly deployed, so that it never feels like a history lesson but at the same time you feel you know the setting intimately from the opening pages. “

From Epoch Times (spoilers removed) Read it all here, but you’ll need to register.

“No Precious Truth” makes the streets and people of 1940s Leeds come alive…this is Nickson’s in-depth understanding of the Leeds area, which he mines for our benefit in every chapter.

Something I found refreshing in “No Precious Truth” was Nickson’s choice to make Cathy a fundamentally competent person, first and foremost, and not have her fixate on internal emotional turmoil or possible personal issues. Her past was neither easy nor glamorous by any stretch, but those details merely flesh out her character rather than define it. Like the way she saves a child from a potentially deadly accident, Cathy treats the rescue as a fact of her past, merely a thing that happened.

Having said that, Nickson also shows Cathy can be very vulnerable and insecure in a heavily male-dominated field in a time that wouldn’t be very open to her presence. But it’s her competence and the way she gets results that wins over most of her teammates. After all, there’s a war going on, and there are much more important things afoot than identity issues.

Based on this first novel, color me impressed. I’m looking forward to the next installment of the Cathy Marsden series and, hopefully, many more after that.