Skeleton Army
'Themes of inequality, forbidden love and personal responsibility weave through a fast-paced narrative in which the location plays a key part. Nation Cymru
The Salvation Army has come prancing and singing from the slums of London to the poorest quarters of Oxford, but along with its red hot gospel preaching and music hall songs it brings a prohibition message which sparks immediate opposition and violence.
An Army soldier – an ex-drunk – is brutally killed and a note suggests that the Salvation Army’s shadowy enemy, the Skeleton Army, is responsible.
With the police unwilling to come between the two forces, Non Vaughan, aspiring journalist and great hope of the Oxford women’s college movement, and Basil Rice, Jesus College fellow and union-sanctioned guardian of the dead man’s family, are compelled to investigate.
But as the threats from both sides escalate, resulting in a second death, Non and Basil realise that they must stop the fighting before it results in an outright war. For with the University’s annual commemoration week fast approaching, the entire city could be engulfed in fire and blood…
An utterly compelling historical mystery, and a fascinating portrait of Victorian Oxford, perfect for fans of Andrew Taylor, C. J. Sansom and Antonia Hodgson.
A former speech and language therapist and current freelance writer and editor, Alis Hawkins is a founding member of Welsh crime writers’ collective, Crime Cymru, and chair of Wales’s only crime fiction festival, Gŵyl CRIME CYMRU Festival. She has been shortlisted for the CWA's Historical Dagger three times, most recently in 2024 for A Bitter Remedy.