THEY TELL NO TALES: A Tommy Hambledon Novel (Rue Morgue Vintage Mystery) by Coles, Manning - 2008

Boulder, CO, U.S.A.: Rue Morgue Press, 2008. 1st printing. A fine, unread copy of this trade paperback. Tommy Hambledon's back in England dealing with Nazi saboteurs, whisky, dazzling femmes fatales, hairdressers, and a lovestruck young secret agent. Tommy is back in England after a long and rather unusual stay in Nazi Germany. He's still trying to decide if he likes being back in his homeland when he's sent to investigate sabotage involving ships sailing from Portsmouth Harbor. But a key informant is killed at the local pub just before Tommy and junior intelligence officer Jimmy Bellair can talk to him, forcing our newly repatriated secret agent to join forces with the local police inspector to find the murderer, whom he suspects will lead him to the saboteur. At his side is his comrade-in-arms from Germany, Alfred Reck, whose view of an England he too,has not known for many years is possibly even more sardonic than Tommy's. Their suspects include a flirtatious young governess who tries to steal Jimmy's heart, a handsome hairdresser and the decorative blonde who is stepping out with him, an Irish garage keeper, an Italian conjuror, and the Wax Doll, a woman with a secret. Set not long after the 1938 Munich appeasement, They Tell No Tales was first published in 1941.. 1st Prtg. Pictorial Wrappers. New/No Jacket. Illus. by Pudim, Rob. Trade Paperback.