Chief Inspector Martineau Investigates – serie

Hell is a City is the first of Maurice Procter's Inspector Martineau series and was made into taut, fast-paced film in 1959 by Hammer Studios, set against the grimy back streets and rain-streaked bright lights of Manchester.When hardened criminal Don Starling escapes from jail, killing a prison guard in the process, Inspector Philip Martineau knows he will stop at nothing to make good his escape. The two men have known each other since childhood, and Starling blames Martineau for his incarceration a decade earlier. As the story hurtles to its conclusion, the two men meet in a final, violent confrontation.

'Maurice Procter's Chief Inspector Martineau is one of fiction's best policemen' New York Times The Plumber's men are swift workers, who take murder in their stride. But who is the Plumber himself - the brains behind the highly organized and disciplined gang terrorizing Granchester? And how, in a town where everyone is too scared to open their mouths for fear of being the next target, will Detective Inspector Martineau break up this tightly woven network?

Chief Inspector Martineau and Sergeant Devery have every motive for finding and pursuing a killer who murdered their friend and colleague Inspector Robert McQuade, especially as it now appears that the same person may have Martineau in his sights. But what does all this have to do with a crooked stockbroker and a man who is trying to frame the Chief Inspector for taking bribes? And could the investigation be putting his family in jeopardy?

An anonymous telephone call reports two murders and a bank robbery, and the following day an advertisement in the local paper reports that £10,000 in notes has been found in the street. Chief Inspector Martineau believes that local Granchester mobster boss Dixie Costello is mixed up in the affair - and a woman known to police as 'Annie the Acrobat' is attracting a lot of attention.

There was an extra body in the morgue - a body stripped of all identification and with its face badly battered. But when Inspector Martineau was called to the scene he had a pretty good idea whose it was. That was, however, just the beginning. A big payroll robbery, a group of out-of-town mobsters and some odd behaviour in a local night spot all attract Inspector Martineau's attention. While, at a funeral parlour, the quick are considerably more active and dangerous a problem than the dead.

Inspector Martineau has a nasty murder to solve: that of a blonde girl, aged just twelve. Martineau knows that child murder can be habit forming, that such cases encourage copycats. They have to move quickly.But they aren't quick enough, and two days later, the girl's death is followed by another. Granchester Police redouble their efforts, yet the killer escapes them. Feelings run high: for the parents, neighbours and the murderer ... Then the police close in on Cherub - young, plump, his mother's darling. But have they got the right man?

Actor turned thief Rafe Tyrrel knows where more than two and a half million pounds is hidden, the proceeds of a Royal Mail train robbery and a post office job, both the work of his Islington gang.Now Rafe is in a high-security prison in Granchester. Detective Chief Inspector Martineau knows that every gang in England will want a cut of that money, and will try to get to Rafe.One of Rafe's gang, Pilgrim, moves the rest of the men to industrial towns around Granchester - ready to spring Tyrrel and get their share. But will stylish Granchester 'businessman' Dixie Costello and his associates get there first?