The Devil's Banquet

A pacy thriller, pulsing with adventure, packed with glitz and sleaze. Phil Lecomber certainly knows how to spin a compulsive yarn.
-Tom Mead, bestselling author of Death and the Conjuror

An esoteric distillation of seedy 1930s Soho into a blood-curdling, complex mystery.
-Greg Mosse, author of the French Village Mysteries

Phil Lecomber creates a 1933 Soho that really gets under your skin. Between the winding alleyways and dingy nightclubs is a world that’s dark, mysterious and dangerous. A brilliant piece of pitch black noir with perfectly executed twists and reveals. A cockney detective, a cannibal cult and Hitler’s secret service - there’s a lot packed into this novel, but in Lecomber’s hands it’s utterly compelling.
-Jamie West, author of Death on the Pier

This gripping noir mystery conjures up a dark 1920s underworld with wit and pace - you’ll be rooting for detective George Harley.
-Jo Cunningham, author of Death by Numbers

Grub’s up! Lecomber serves macabre morsels and sinful snacks at the Devil’s Banquet with a side of pacy plotting. Cosy this ain’t, tuck in.
-Robert Holtom, author of A Queer Case

Nobody else writes interwar London quite like Phil Lecomber. With decapitated showgirls, esoteric cults, and ruthless Nazi agents, all against a backdrop of seedy Soho, the second entry in the Piccadilly Noir series packs as much of a punch as cynical hero George Harley.
-Stuart Douglas, author of Death at the Dress Rehearsal

The Devil’s Banquet is fantastic. Beautifully written - no-one has as good a grasp of the language of the era or the milieu as Phil - and genuinely gripping, with great characterisation. Phil Lecomber really pulled the rug out from under my feet at the end and I can’t wait for the next one in the series.
-Ajay Chowdhury, author of The Waiter

The Devil’s Banquet is a brilliant title - I wish I’d thought of it. Phil Lecomber’s thriller is well researched, with deft period detail and a dark sense of humour. Add that to a good ear for dialogue and a knack for vivid characterisation and you have a winning combination.
-Andrew Cartmel, author of the Vinyl Detective series

A dark, atmospheric read evoking a wild and glamorous 1930s London. Rich in historical detail and peppered with vividly racy slang, The Devil’s Banquet is a deliciously sumptuous feast.
-Russ Thomas, author of the DS Adam Tyler series

Dark, morally serious, and rooted in genuine interwar dread, this is crime fiction built for horror readers.
-Ginger Nuts of Horror

Praise for Midnight Streets

A walk on the wild side of 1920s London. Dark, atmospheric and utterly compelling.’ Jake Arnott, bestselling author of The Long Firm and The Fatal Tree

It’s 1929. While Sam Spade is busy chasing a black bird through the mean streets of San Francisco, war vet and private sherlock George Harley is following the bloody trail of a book of the damned through the streets of Jazz Age London. Phil Lecomber’s jaw-dropping debut is exactly what I want from a historical hardboiled novel: passionate nihilism and a tough-as-nails loner making his way through a depraved underworld whose darkness goes all the way down. Actually, I’m lying. I didn’t know that’s what I wanted until Lecomber served it up to me in Midnight Streets, and I very much hope he has more in store for us.
-Duane Swierczynski, New York Times bestselling author of Lion & Lamb, California Bear and Secret Dead Men

‘I loved this fast-paced, atmospheric adventure through the smoke and neon of 1920s Soho, vividly written and rich with historical detail. The twists and turns will leave you reeling.’ Alex Pavesi, bestselling author of Eight Detectives

If Patrick Hamilton and Dashiell Hammett had got hammered in some boozer in old Soho, Midnight Streets is the novel they’d have come up with. Dodging razor-wielding gangsters, ponces, streetwalkers and bent coppers, cockney private eye George Harley armed only with his wits and a pair of knuckledusters, navigates his way through a pitch-black noir cityscape. All of London (low) life is here. A cracking debut.’ Martyn Waites, author of the Joe Donovan crime series

‘A polished story set in a vibrant and colourful London between the wars. Full of twists, it gradually unveils a horrific set of crimes. The dogged George Harley will appeal to anyone who loves a private detective story.’ Mick Finlay, author of the Arrowood Mysteries series

A gripping mystery, steeped in the deliciously seedy side of the Golden Age crime.’ Lucy Barker, author of The Other Side of Mrs Wood

‘A clever mix of Silence of the Lambs and Dennis Wheatley, all set in the dark and dangerous world of Jazz Age Soho.’ Stuart Douglas, author of Death at the Dress Rehearsal and Death at the Playhouses

‘Absolutely terrific - incredibly gripping… brought the seamy streets and seamier denizens of 1920s London to brutal life.’ Ajay Chowdhury, author of The Waiter and The Cook

Set in London in 1929 - prime Golden Age territory - Midnight Streets is as dark as any noir classic. In this book, evil has its gloves, and its monocle, off, and we see the darkness we knew was there.’ S. J. Rozan, co-author of the Judge Dee and Lao She mysteries

An atmospheric thriller set in 1920s London, which reveals Lecomber’s keen ear for the off-beat rhythms of the city. Midnight Streets burrows into the darker facets of the glittering Golden Age, with a cast of shadowy characters dragged from the back alleys. Immersive and mysterious, this debut will delight historical crime fans.’ Jo Furniss, author of Dead Mile

It’s dark, it’s gory, evoking an earlier time of the penny dreadfuls, that traded on the ability to shock, added to which is a real feel for the macabre and the grotesque… Midnight Streets is a magnificent period noir that is steeped in the atmosphere of London and a touch of the classic hardboiled.’ Peter Turns the Page blog

Praise for Phil Lecomber’s self-published debut The Mask of Verdoy

The smoky and smoggy atmosphere of 1930s London is captured beautifully… an excellent debut.
– Crime Fiction Lover

Readers will practically see the city’s pea-soup smog and smell Harley’s ubiquitous Gold Flake cigarettes wafting off the page… An engrossing historical murder mystery.
– Kirkus Reviews

An enthralling tale of murder and manipulation that’ll place you in 1930s London.
– Crime Thriller Hound

Phil Lecomber was born on the outskirts of South East London. Although he now resides in the beautiful city of Bath, he has spent most of his working life in the capital, in a variety of occupations. Phil’s diverse career has included time as a musician performing in the city’s clubs, pubs, and dives; a steel-fixer working on the towering edifices of the Square Mile; and a designer of stained-glass windows. For 35 years, he worked in Mayfair at the internationally renowned fine art auction house Sotheby’s, where he oversaw electronic security for some of the world’s most valuable works of art.

His debut novel, Midnight Streets – the first in the Piccadilly Noir series – was published in spring 2025. The second in the series, The Devil’s Banquet, is set for release in 2026.

All of which, of course, has provided wonderful material for a novelist’s inspiration.

Always an avid reader, a chance encounter as a teenager with a Gerald Kersh short story led to a fascination with the ‘Morbid Age’—the years between the wars. The world that Phil has created for the Piccadilly Noir series is the result of the consumption and distillation of myriad contemporary novels, films, historical accounts, biographies and slang dictionaries of the 1920s/30s—with a nod here and there to some of the real-life colourful characters that he’s had the pleasure of rubbing shoulders with over the years.

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