The London Blitz Murders

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On the brink of war, London was the largest and-in the opinion of many-greatest city in the world. Metropolitan London’s population was eight million and ever-growing, the population of Great Britain herself having risen some five million souls between the First War and the coming one… a third of whom lived or worked in London.

The Port of London commanded more tonnage than any other, generating a quarter of Britain’s imports; and better than half the world’s international trade passed through the claustrophobic, clogged financial district between the East End docks and the prosperous West End. Air travel was coming into its own as well, with London at the center of a network of airways making international travel fast and practical.

London, then as now, was the seat of government-legislative, executive and judiciary, with the House of Lords the Empire’s supreme court of appeal-as well as home to the royal capital… Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul’s and even the Tower of London down the Thames, where heads no longer rolled and the crown jewels were under watch by guards (and tourists).

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