The Spore - JM Campbell

From the morgues of London to the mists of Scotland, the rot is spreading

London, 1953. The Coronation’s glitter has faded, leaving behind a city still shivering in the shadow of the Great Smog and the Cold War’s deepening chill.

Under the fog-infested streets of London lies the sterile, subterranean morgue of St. George’s Hospital, where Alistair McCrae struggles to avoid human encounters. Fortunately, most of his clientele are corpses that can’t talk back. Alistair is a physician turned pathologist and a reluctant war hero with crushing secrets. And when Alistair is summoned to the British Home Office, his world changes irrevocably.

To Alex Cromwell, Alistair is a dangerous man with unknown baggage weighing him down. But Alex has no choice but to work with Alistair when the highest levels of the British Crown elicit Alistair’s assistance in the search for a killer who has been savagely tearing the throats out of victims across Great Britain.

The trail for the killer leads them away from the capital’s fog-slicked streets to a desolate Scottish fishing village north of Edinburgh. Here, the North Sea batters a community bound by silence, and the ancient earth holds a secret far more volatile than any Cold War threat.

The local constabulary believe their presence in Innisfil is to solve the recent murder of their town doctor; but Alex is focused on something else: the hunt for one of Nazi Germany’s most notorious war criminals. And as Alex and Alistair search for fresh clues, Alex grows certain that the murderer and her target are one and the same.

Little does Alex know that they’ve stumbled onto a dark secret which will reveal the real reason Alistair McCrae was asked to consult on the investigation. And as Alex and Alistair form an uneasy alliance, they uncover an ominous truth: of an ancient race determined to reclaim what was once theirs.

"A suffocating blend of mid-century noir and gothic suspense. You’ll hold your breath until the very last page."