Calling Sergeant Crockford

Book excerpt: It's the dawn of the Swinging Sixties. The Cold War is at its height and support for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament is building. The Berkshire Constabulary's Detective Gwen Crockford is promoted to Woman Police Sergeant in Newbury – the town at the heart of Britain's atomic weapons programme. Gwen's initial reservations that her posting in rural Berkshire will be boring soon prove to be unfounded. A serial sex attacker on the loose, an attempted murder at Greenham Common US Airforce Base, and a charismatic heiress with a family secret keep things interesting for the capable sergeant. Laser-focused on her police career – and resigned to the single life – Gwen is forced to re-evaluate her plans when a nature-loving war veteran PC walks into the station with an orphaned fox cub, and there's a shocking discovery in a railway station lavatory. Written by her daughter Ruth and rich in social history, this is the story of a real-life woman police sergeant at the top of her game, guiding her WPCs through the immense societal changes of the early 1960s.