In the Dark: The True Story of the Blackout Ripper

In February, 1942, a woman was found strangled in a London air raid shelter. Chief Superintendent Frederick Cherrill, head of Scotland Yard’s revolutionary fingerprint division, knew just how well the wartime blackout concealed crime. But this was a brutal, senseless killing with few clues, no apparent motive—and no sign of the terror to come.

The nightly air raids had darkened London’s neon dazzle but not its urge to live it up. With death a daily possibility, drinks and sex were everywhe...