The Judas Monk Murders
(2025)(The fourth book in the Hawthorne Blackout Mystery series)
A novel by Diana Beckett
When the town finally starts to breathe again, the killing begins.
1943, on the storm-torn coast of England. I am Iris Lockwood, air raid warden and the woman who keeps tripping over the bodies Hawthorne Harbor would rather forget. Now the newspapers have a new name for the murderer stalking our streets and our churches: the Judas Monk.
Judges, doctors, and men who once held my future in their hands are dying one by one, arranged like saints in old paintings. Each scene carries a single message for me. Confession is due. Every clue drags me back to the ruined monastery on the headland, where an order of monks once promised secret absolution for the powerful and corrupt. It is where a child version of me stood on a blackout night and lost far more than her best friend.
As the body count climbs, the net tightens around the one truth I have spent a decade refusing to face. The Judas Monk knows exactly what happened the night my friend died. They know what I signed, what I agreed to, and the price Hawthorne Harbor paid so I could walk free. To stop them, I will have to tear up the last shreds of my own reputation and drag every buried secret into the light, even if it ruins the town I am trying to save.
The war wants obedience. The Judas Monk wants judgement. I have to decide whose side I am on, knowing there may be no clean choice left.
The Judas Monk Murders is a gripping World War II historical crime novel and the fourth book in the Hawthorne Blackout Mysteries. Perfect for readers who love tense small town mysteries, complex heroines, and dark secrets that refuse to stay buried.
Genre: Mystery
1943, on the storm-torn coast of England. I am Iris Lockwood, air raid warden and the woman who keeps tripping over the bodies Hawthorne Harbor would rather forget. Now the newspapers have a new name for the murderer stalking our streets and our churches: the Judas Monk.
Judges, doctors, and men who once held my future in their hands are dying one by one, arranged like saints in old paintings. Each scene carries a single message for me. Confession is due. Every clue drags me back to the ruined monastery on the headland, where an order of monks once promised secret absolution for the powerful and corrupt. It is where a child version of me stood on a blackout night and lost far more than her best friend.
As the body count climbs, the net tightens around the one truth I have spent a decade refusing to face. The Judas Monk knows exactly what happened the night my friend died. They know what I signed, what I agreed to, and the price Hawthorne Harbor paid so I could walk free. To stop them, I will have to tear up the last shreds of my own reputation and drag every buried secret into the light, even if it ruins the town I am trying to save.
The war wants obedience. The Judas Monk wants judgement. I have to decide whose side I am on, knowing there may be no clean choice left.
The Judas Monk Murders is a gripping World War II historical crime novel and the fourth book in the Hawthorne Blackout Mysteries. Perfect for readers who love tense small town mysteries, complex heroines, and dark secrets that refuse to stay buried.
Genre: Mystery
Used availability for Diana Beckett's The Judas Monk Murders