In June 1946, Divisional Detective Reginald Spooner was called to the Pembridge Court Hotel in London's Notting Hill Gate, where an out-of-work artist named Margery Gardner was found brutally murdered. The hotel room was registered to Lieutenant-Colonel Neville Heath, but he was missing. Fearing his suspect might flee the country, Detective Spooner triggered a nationwide manhunt for a man who would soon be labelled "the most dangerous criminal modern Britain has known" and whose capture would be a crowning jewel in the detective's career.

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