It's Leeds, 1940: a city on fire. On the night of the Luftwaffe's fiercest bombardment, Captain Abraham Matthews has finally caught up with Albie Crowe, the champion of a gang of petty thieves and professional plunderers who he has been intent on snaring these past six months. Holed up in a brick air-raid shelter at the scrub end of Woodhouse Moor, Abraham and Albie wait for the sirens to end and justice to come. But word is out that Abraham has, at last, ensnared Albie Crowe. Even as the sirens wail, a gang of Albie's loyal boys are picking their way across the city to rescue their leader and fell his captor. It's down to Captain Abraham Matthews, then. All he has to do is ferry his charge three miles across the city to reach the station at the end of Meanwood Road. Along the way, there will be ruptured roads and columns of fire, killers will lurk in the shadows, secrets long buried will be unearthed and the dark history between the two men will finally unfold. It's going to be one hell of a night.

Robert Dinsdale was born in North Yorkshire in 1981 and studied in Leeds. He now lives and works in London. The Harrowing - the first in a trilogy of novels set in Leeds - was publsihed in 2009.