Dominic Nolan on Historical Crime Fiction, London, and Cycles of Violence

I saw this from November 2024.

Subtitle: A conversation with the author of ‘White City’

I don’t even remember how I came across Vine Street, British author Dominic Nolan’s third crime novel, because it is published in the UK and not readily available in the U.S., but by the time I finished the first chapter, I was hooked. This was a major talent with an original voice. The story, which jumps between the 1930s, the 1960s, and the early Aughts–spending most of the time in the ‘30s in London’s seedy Soho neighborhood between the wars—follows Leon Geats, a vice cop who likes the criminals he’s supposed to police far more than he does most of the coppers he works with.

Despite the gruesome murders—based on the real-life murders of foreign sex workers during the period—Geats’ passion wears off on the reader and you find yourself wanting to inhabit this shady world and the big and burly and broken hearts that love it. And without giving anything away, I’ll say that the twist at the end is perhaps the best sleight of hand I’ve read in any book. Just masterful plotting.

So when I saw that Nolan had a new historically-based crime novel coming out in England in November, I couldn’t wait to read it and I got in touch with Nolan to arrange for a copy. It was again peopled with deeply conflicted, powerfully drawn, tough and tragic characters racing around real historical events and bumping into real people. Think of a British James Ellroy without the ego or the noxious right-wing delight in racist epithets.

Dominic Nolan on Historical Crime Fiction, London, and Cycles of Violence