The English Führer by Rory Clements

Zaffre | 2023 (19 January) | 400p | Review copy | Buy the book

It is the autumn of 1945. The war is over but not for everyone. While many war criminals wait in their cells for trial, others have hidden themselves and continue the work of their Führer or emperor. A Japanese submarine reaches the end of its very long journey at the quiet town of Flowthorpe. It’s not long before many of the inhabitants become extremely ill and the town is sealed off by the military. Former spy Tom Wilde has returned to his job as Professor of History at Cambridge University but he is not to be left in peace. He is given the task of investigating a suspected ring of fascists who will stop at nothing to keep their cause alive, with a new leader, here in England. Tom and his wife Lydia are right to be concerned. They are told that their names are on a Nazi hitlist. Others on that list are already murdered. England has never been more dangerous for Professor Tom Wilde and his family.

The English Führer is the seventh novel in a series that I have loved from the beginning. They are usually published in January and it’s hard to imagine a better way to start off the reading year. You can read any of them on their own but I recommend reading them as a series. We have been on a dangerous journey with Tom and Lydia from before the war with Tom’s undercover missions taking him to the heart of Nazi Germany. It’s so good to learn that the series continues even though the war is over. Now the trouble is all on home shores.

Rory Clements is such a good writer of spy novels set in any period. Tom Wilde is an expert on Elizabethan espionage, which is a wonderful reference to the author’s other novels set in the 16th century. Parallels are found between the past and present and Tom has learnt much from Elizabeth I’s spymaster Walsingham. I really enjoy the idea of a history professor transforming himself into a spy. But the fact that he appears in the hit list shows just how well he performed that role. His wife Lydia has had a secondary role for later books in the series and so it is good to have her back for this book. There is something very appealing about Lydia.

The English Führer tells a great story, complex at times, as you might expect from a spy novel. It’s impossible to know who to trust and Tom and Lydia find themselves in very real danger. These novels have always considered the nature of evil and here we discover what can happen to it when it is driven underground or, worse, is found to be useful by the victorious nations.

I think the novel suffers a little from not including one of Tom’s missions abroad but this is a minor point. It’s an excellent novel that continues a series I really don’t want to be without and I heartily recommend it.

Other reviews
Holy Spy
Corpus
Nucleus
Nemesis
Hitler’s Secret
A Prince and a Spy
The Man in the Bunker

A Sunlit Weapon by Jacqueline Winspear

Allison & Busby | 2022 (22 March) | 375p | Review copy | Buy the book

It is 1942 and the Americans have joined the war. With many men away from home, American GIs are helping out in English fields, keeping things going, making friends, falling in love. Women are working alongside them, including female pilots who collect and deliver planes across the country. One of them has a shock when she realises that there is someone on the ground firing at her plane from a barn. When she goes to investigate, she finds a terrified tied-up black American GI who says he had not been kept alone. His friend, a white man, had been taken away, probably to be shot. The army immediately judge him a guilty man. It is up to private detective Maisie Dobbs to discover the truth and clear the soldier’s name before he is transported back to the US. Maisie, married to an American, is better aware than most of the differences between the two nations and of the paramount importance that nothing destroys the relationship between them. Not everyone, it seems, agrees with that.

I am a huge fan of the Maisie Dobbs series by Jacqueline Winspear. A Sunlit Weapon is the seventeenth in the series. I haven’t read them all yet (I discovered them relatively recently, about 3 years ago) but I have enjoyed reading them whenever I can and I think I’ve now read about ten of them. So, while I don’t think you need to have read them all to enjoy A Sunlit Weapon, I would recommend that you read one or two, just so that you have a bit of an understanding of Maisie’s unusual background and her relationships, particularly with her assistant, with her husband and with her adopted daughter. Maisie’s been through some adventures over the last twenty years. She’s known tragedy and she’s also experienced the worst of mankind. But there is also love.

I am so fond of Maisie. She is practical, busy, helpful and loving. There is also an obstinacy to her. She will fight for what is right and she will persevere. She spends half of her time in London and the other half in the country, with her daughter Anna. But there are signs that this cannot continue indefinitely. Anna needs her. She is different from her schoolfriends and teachers. This is not a good time to be different. This is made more than apparent when Maisie takes on the case of the African-American GI.

I enjoy the spy element of these novels. Maisie has, in the past, gone undercover to complete some lethal missions. Those days are gone but she is still involved with individuals from the government, while her husband Mark is an important, somewhat shadowy figure at the American Embassy in London. His role now is to prepare the ground for the First Lady who is determined to visit England and encourage the GIs in person. There is a potential for disaster.

This isn’t fast crime fiction. In a way, it’s more of a saga, a leisurely investigation over multiple novels into the impact of the First World War, the rise of fascism and the Second World War on Maisie Dobbs and those she loves. It’s historical fiction more than crime and there are some fascinating glimpses into life in the early 1940s. The female pilots are especially admirable and charismatic. You can see why Maisie would be drawn to them. Discrimination is a clear theme of the series, whether it’s against women, foreigners or those of a different colour. This novel also provides an appealing portrait of the transformation of London by war but also by the influx of foreigners and new attitudes.

I was engrossed by A Sunlit Weapon and soon fell back into the cosy yet thoughtful world in which the author immerses the reader. I will always read these novels and, once more, look forward to Maisie’s return.

Other reviews
The American Agent
The Consequences of Fear

The Man in the Bunker by Rory Clements

Zaffre | 2022 (20 January) | 476p | Review copy | Buy the book

The war is over and it is time for the guilty to pay for their atrocities. While the Nazis are rounded up, ready for trial and punishment, their leader is believed dead. He committed suicide in his bunker under Berlin’s bombed streets, his body burned. But did Hitler really die in the bunker. The American and British secret service suspect he escaped, their suspicions supported by a trail of strange and violent deaths in Germany. It is time once more for Tom Wilde, an American Professor of History at Cambridge University and reluctant spy, to head to Germany and follow the clues and trace the witnesses to the truth. But Wilde is not alone. He is paired with Dutch soldier Mozes Heck, who has his own agenda and it could get both of them killed.

The Tom Wilde series is one of the very best being written today and I have been a huge fan of it from its beginning. Rory Clements is an excellent writer who has written both Tudor and World War Two thrillers. Interestingly, Wilde is an expert in Elizabethan history. There is a wider perspective to these novels, a strong sense that intrigue and deception are timeless and that the past can repeat itself. I like that. The Man in the Bunker is the sixth novel in a series that has taken us from the troubled, ominous years just before the war, through the war and now to its immediate aftermath when the concentration camps are being liberated and the true horror of the war is revealed. Berlin at this time is such a fascinating setting for a thriller that is enthralling from start to finish.

I think that The Man in the Bunker stands well alone as it very much focuses on the matter at hand, removing Wilde from his life and family in Cambridge. It is apart from the earlier novels. But I really recommend reading them all. Wilde is a fantastic character, an intellectual and a man of action. He has his hands full here, though, thanks to Heck, who holds his own against Wilde and adds a real edge of danger and menace to the story, while being a constant reminder of the personal motivation of many to bring the Nazis to justice. The two men uncover multiple stories of suffering and endurance. This is a powerful, disturbing novel.

Wilde and Heck interview several of the people who knew Hitler most, adding to the mystery element of the novel while also providing a chilling picture of Hitler and those closest to him during the last days of the Reich.

The Man in the Bunker is thoroughly exciting, ingenious and page-turning. Now that the war is over I wonder what the future holds for Tom Wilde but I really hope we haven’t seen the last of him and his wife, Lydia. This has been a great series from the beginning but I think that this, the sixth, is my favourite.

Other reviews
Holy Spy
Corpus
Nucleus
Nemesis
Hitler’s Secret
A Prince and a Spy

The Mitford Vanishing by Jessica Fellowes

Sphere | 2021 (4 November) | 416p | Review copy and Bought copy | Buy the book

It is 1937 and Europe is marching towards war, with Civil War already raging in Spain. Idealists on both sides – Communist and Fascist – are drawn to the conflict in Spain, perhaps not realising the horrors they will face there. The Mitford family is as divided as Europe but they come together when they realise that Communist sister Jessica (nicknamed Decca) has eloped to France and believed to be heading for Spain. Their former maid Louisa now runs a private detective agency with her ex-policeman husband Guy and the two of them are surprised when novelist Nancy Mitford hires them to track down Decca and her unsuitable lover. Scandal, war, ruination face the young woman if she cannot be found in time.

The Mitford Vanishing is the fifth novel in Jessica Fellowes’ wonderful series, which follows the lives of this extraordinary,  glamorous and controversial family. Each one tends to look at a different sister and so you can pick them up easily but I’d really recommend reading the series from the beginning as then you’ll know more about Louisa and Guy. Louisa is the star of these novels however shiny the sisters are. One thing’s for sure, they all attract trouble and they have kept Louisa’s investigative skills busy since the day she first met them.

This time we’re on the trail of Decca but, as she remains elusive for much of the novel, the focus is on the people that Louisa and Guy meet on their travels across France. The war in Spain looms over events and the details about that are fascinating. Louisa, though, has other matters on her mind and spends much of the novel investigating another case in London of a missing woman while Guy chases clues on the continent.

The novel mixes fact and fiction very well and the scenes in France are particularly compelling. I wasn’t convinced as much by the London missing person case or its conclusion but Decca’s mysterious disappearance is thoroughly entertaining and a great device through which to look at the rise of fascism and the Spanish Civil War.

Louisa is a fabulous main character and I’ve enjoyed following her over the years. Her husband Guy plays a much bigger role than usual and he is improved for it. The two now feel like an equal partnership and they work so well together.

I listened to the audiobook, which was well-read but I think the treebook would be better due to the many brief chapters.

We are running out of Mitford sisters now but arguably the strangest of them all remains – Unity. I really, really hope Jessica Fellowes tackles her next!

Other reviews
The Mitford Murders catch up (The Mitford Murders and Bright Young Dead)
The Mitford Scandal
The Mitford Trial

An Island at War by Deborah Carr

One More Chapter | 2021 (16 September) | 383p | Review copy | Buy the book

It is June 1940 and the people of Jersey are under no illusion – the British government has announced that the island has been demilitarised, effectively leaving Jersey open to conquest. Rosie Le Maistre is one of the lucky ones. The little girl is sent away on one of the last evacuation ships, heading to her Aunt Muriel in London. Estelle, her much older sister, is left behind to work on the farm with her father and grandmother. It’s not long before the German army arrives in force, a catastrophe for the men in Estelle’s life, her father and boyfriend. Life on the island changes entirely, everything from a conversion to German currency and time to the arrival of slaves who will turn Jersey into a fortress island. But it’s not just the island that’s occupied. Soon Estelle and her grandmother have a German office, Hans Bauer, billeted on their farm. Life becomes a struggle for survival.

I’ve always been fascinated by the German occupation of the Channel Islands during the Second World War and have read several novels on the subject over the years. I was therefore drawn to An Island at War. There is definitely something of The Guernsey Literary Pie Society about An Island At War, albeit on a different island, and that’s no bad thing. This is another very human story, focusing on the impact of war and occupation on the lives of otherwise ordinary people who happened to live in the only part of Britain that was occupied.

Most of the novel tells Estelle’s story on Jersey but there are a few extracts from Rosie’s journal, written in London. I found these tantalising and would have liked much more of Rosie’s life during the Blitz. It’s clear that tumultuous things are happening to her but it’s all in the shadows and all too brief.

I liked Estelle very much and enjoyed reading about her relationships with her grand mother, their friends and with the Germans on the island. It’s mostly black and white but there is some interesting grey as Estelle and Hans struggle to reach a compromise. But it is very difficult to have sympathy for Hans when the horror of the German occupation and what is happening on the continent to Jews and people from the east is such a big part of the book. In a way, there is a conflict between the fascinating historical detail of the novel and its emotional element. The author lives on Jersey and knows its history well and that adds so much to the book. I’m not quite sure that other parts of it – Estelle’s relationships, Rosie’s experiences in London – live up to that. My main issue with the novel, though, is its ending, which is far too abrupt and unsatisfactory.

An Island at War is an enjoyable light read, which shines with the author’s knowledge about her island and its history. I learned a great deal about the little details of life under occupation. I had no idea about much of it, and that is what I’ll take away from the novel.

Three Words for Goodbye by Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb

HarperCollins | 2021 (27 July) | 400p | Review copy | Buy the book

Clara and Madeleine Sommers were once the closest of sisters but their differences have driven them apart. But now they must come together to fulfil the final wishes of their much loved and dying grandmother, Violet, who has asked them to travel to Europe from their home in America to deliver letters to three people who changed Violet’s life in her own travels across Europe 40 years before, a journey inspired by the great explorer, journalist and close friend Nellie Bly. But the year is now 1937 and Europe is a very different place. As Clara and Madeleine embark on the Queen Mary for Paris, Venice and Vienna, they will find a Europe slipping into the darkness of fascism. There is much for the two sisters to experience before they can return back to New York City aboard the Hindenburg.

I am such a huge fan of historical romance set during the earlier decades of the 20th century and, after reading the authors’ fantastic Meet Me in Monaco, I couldn’t wait to read Three Words for Goodbye. I am fascinated by the 1930s and this novel does such a good job of exploring the culture of the time in the three great cities of Paris, Venice and Vienna, while subtly portraying the sinister menace and threat of Nazism, which increases as the sisters move from France to Mussolini’s Italy and Nazi Austria. The sisters travel in luxury and style, heightening the contrast between their experiences and those of the local people, whose freedoms are being threatened. They are shocked by the violence they witness and the rumours they hear. But the focus, though, is on relationships, both old and new.

The novel is effectively divided into three as the sisters progress across Europe and deliver each of the three letters, discovering more and more about their grandmother’s life when she was a young woman, while also learning about each other and what they both want from life. Clara, in particular, has some significant decisions to make. The chapters alternate between the two women and it works so well.

I loved Three Words for Goodbye. It’s romantic but not sentimental and tells a wonderful story about families, growing up, finding and losing love, being an independent woman at a time when this was not easy, especially if from the kind of background that Clara and Madeleine are from. It also has a fascinating historical setting and the descriptions of 1930s’ Paris, Venice and Vienna, as well as the voyage aboard the Queen Mary, are fabulous. As for the section aboard the Hindenburg…. Hazel Gaynor (one of my very favourite authors) and Heather Webb are a collaborative tour de force and I can’t wait, and hope, for more.

Other reviews
Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb – Meet Me in Monaco
Hazel Gaynor – The Bird in the Bamboo Cage

Blackout by Simon Scarrow

Headline | 2021 (18 March) | 432p | Review copy and Bought copy | Buy the book

Berlin in December 1939 is beginning to feel the effects of war. Shortages are becoming noticeable in the city’s most celebrated restaurants, much to the irritation of powerful men, but, far more menacingly, the newly-imposed nightly blackout has brought monsters out to play. When Gerda Korzeny, a former actress and celebrated beauty, is raped and murdered, the establishment takes note. Gerda was married to a top Nazi lawyer, a friend of Goebbels. The Gestapo call in Criminal Inspector Horst Schenke to investigate. There’s a reason Schenke has been selected – he’s not a member of the Nazi Party and is only tolerated for his glamorous past racing cars, an illustrious career that ended in a crash. If this case should uncover demons, then Schenke will make the perfect scapegoat. Then, as the nights draw even darker, another woman is murdered and the pressure on Schenke mounts.

Berlin is one of my favourite cities and I’ve always been fascinated by its past, especially during the 1930s when its reputation as a city of culture and hedonism comes up against the brick wall of the Nazis and fascism. Blackout is set at a particularly interesting time, during the first weeks of the Second World War when society seems bemused that Britain should have declared war on it. At this time war is mostly an inconvenience with the parties and dining out continuing, with the acceptance that eventually Britain and France will succumb to German military might, just like Poland. It’s intriguing to see how these men and women view the Nazis among them. Most have joined the Nazi Party and there is an acceptance and compliance, albeit one tinged with fear and regret. That’s for some, others positively thrive.

Crime fiction set in Nazi Berlin is not straightforward. The crimes of the regime are off the scale, so the author is faced with the challenge of making the reader feel that these murders matter. There also needs to be an empathy with Schenke. That issue is partly solved by giving him his glamorous past and also his angst with his Nazi controllers. He’s getting on with life as best as he can, loyal to Germany but uneasy with its fascism. There is some success. The murders are cruel – I actually couldn’t read some of this – and we do care for the women, especially Gerda. There is a whole social side to this, which goes beyond politics, with the lot of some women as trophy wives or mistresses. But I’m not sure I have the same empathy towards Schenke but that’s not so much to do with his issues towards the Nazis as with his attitude towards women, an attitude that seems prevalent through the novel.

The serial killer investigation part of the novel is bleak (admittedly I’m not much of a reader of serial killer crime fiction, whatever the setting) and I rather think that women have a hard time of it generally. Nobody seems to like them very much, including Horst Schenke, who, like other men in the novel, is very critical of the woman he professes to love. The women here are judged by their lovers. Gerda was and so, too, is Karin, Schenke’s girlfriend. He seems more interested in her important admiral uncle than her and he regularly reflects on her faults. Gerda is hit by her lover. I found this casual dislike of women quite difficult, quite apart from the violence done to them by the killer. It does, though, help build an atmosphere that this is a place doing great wrongs, an evil place and time. It is most definitely atmospheric and immersive – there is a fog of evil hanging over Berlin in December 1939, compounded by the blackout.

So, despite my issues with the novel, it is a powerful read and, if you enjoy serial killer thrillers, then this may well be for you. Its historical setting is vividly real and is undoubtedly one of the most evocative portrayals of Nazi Berlin that I’ve read. You can feel the cold horror of it as Nazism permeates itself into society and people’s lives. The killings don’t seem out of place and that makes them even more harrowing.

I can’t finish this review without saying how much I adore Simon Scarrow’s Cato and Macro novels!

Other reviews
The Blood Crows
Brothers in Blood
Britannia
Invictus
Day of the Caesars
The Blood of Rome
Traitors of Rome
The Emperor’s Exile
With T.J. Andrews – Invader

The Consequences of Fear by Jacqueline Winspear

Allison & Busby | 2021 (23 March) | 350p | Review copy | Buy the book

The Consequences of Fear is the 16th novel in Jacqueline Winspear’s much loved and wonderful series featuring Maisie Dobbs, a well-to-do investigator and secret agent in London before and during World War Two. You don’t need to have read all or any of the series to enjoy this latest addition to it (it would even serve as a good introduction) but, if you have, you’ll be as emotionally invested in Maisie as I am and that will add a certain special something to your appreciation of it. I haven’t read them all yet. I’ve read the last few and a couple of the earlier ones and I can thoroughly recommend them and I’m looking forward to catching up with the others. Maisie is definitely a person worth knowing, as is her very dependable and invaluable assistant Billy.

It is October 1941 and bombs continue to fall on London. It is a scarred and pitted city, full of deserted or destroyed buildings. The war effort is everything with many trying to do their bit, while others try and hold things together, still remembering the horrors of the Great War. When young Freddie Hackett, a runner who carries government messages across London, witnesses a murder in a doorway, nobody believes him. But Maisie Dobbs does.

Maisie does everything she can to help Freddie and his family, in tandem with the overstretched police, while continuing in her other job working with a secret government department to train men and women to go undercover in occupied France to work with the Resistance. The burden of this role is almost overpowering for Maisie and is due to become even more so. Maisie is soon to learn that the secrets of the last war remain as dangerous as ever while the current war is reaching a critical stage.

This is a fantastic series and I read The Consequences of Fear as soon as I could. I’m so glad I did as I think this novel could well be my favourite. It feels like a significant book in the series. Maisie’s family life seems to be settling down, causing her to re-evaluate her life and the significance of her friendships. Maisie’s friends play an important role in the novel, as do women in general. She might work for and with men but Maisie is well aware of how special these women are – women who parachute into France to work for the Resistance as radio operators (a role with an average life span of only six weeks), women spies, army drivers, mothers, daughters, friends. I love this circle that surrounds Maisie.

But we can’t forget Billy, Maisie’s assistant, who is completely wonderful. Maisie is, not to put too fine a point on it, posh. She has money to spare and there’s a philanthropic side to her. There’s a formality to her dealings with those who work for her, even if she is very happy to get her hands dirty. Billy can’t really be called a friend but I think Maisie would certainly regard him as family. The two of them together follow their case across London and I love the detail of this – the pubs they visit to question landlords, the deserted houses, the trains, the dark streets, the river. There is a deeply poignant scene near the beginning with the river. This is a city under attack, people are suffering. While it brings out the best in some, it certainly doesn’t in others. Freddie, just a child, bears the weight of this.

I loved spending time with Maisie again. I hoped for the best for her throughout and I worried with her when she felt responsible for the women being sent into France. I enjoy how she mixes with hard-drinking government men and stressed detectives. She straddles male and female wartime experiences. Above all else, Maisie and Billy are immensely likeable, as are Maisie’s friends and family. I can’t wait to see them all again.

Other review
The American Agent

The Rose Code by Kate Quinn

HarperCollins | 2021 (18 March) | 656p | Review copy | Buy the book

When war is declared in September 1939, glamorous debutante Osla Kendall can’t get back to England from Montreal fast enough to help with the war effort. After a few exhausting weeks building Hurricanes, Osla is headhunted for her language skills and finds herself in Bletchley Park alongside Mab Churt, a working class girl who can type better than anyone. The two of them lodge with Mrs Finch, a ghastly woman whose daughter, the quiet and withdrawn Beth, has an extraordinary gift for solving puzzles. The three of them are soon at home in Bletchley Park, a place where genius and madness co-exist and whose inhabitants will go to astonishing lengths to break life-saving codes. But there is still time for Osla to dance the night away with her beau, Prince Philip of Greece, when he’s home on leave from the navy.

After the war, while she waits for her prince to marry another woman, Osla receives a message from her past. The three friends are no longer close, on the contrary, and one of them is in an asylum. The three must work together once more to fight another threat. The clues to it can be found in their time together at Bletchley Park, a time of secrets, friendships and war.

I knew that I wanted to read The Rose Code the moment I heard about it. I really enjoyed Lady of the Eternal City (which couldn’t be more different!) and so I knew that the story of the women who worked at Bletchley Park, alongside their more famous male counterparts, would be in safe hands. I absolutely loved it!

Our three heroines are drawn from different classes and backgrounds, with Osla hailing from the very heights of society, and yet all three have to face the very real challenges of leading independent, working lives at a time when society viewed such women with suspicion. War changes society and it undoubtedly gave women such as these a new lease of freedom. But it’s at such a cost, as can be seen by our tantalising glimpses of the secretive work going on in these mysterious huts to prevent U-boat attacks and quicken the end to war. But it’s outside those huts that the novel really comes alive as the three women get to know one another and embark on their own adventures – love affairs, marriage, fighting back, friendships with such fascinating and charismatic men. We know from the premise and the sections of the novel that are set a few years later in the days leading up to the marriage of Prince Philip and the Princess Elizabeth that there is darkness and treachery in their future and the reader never loses their desire to find out exactly what happens.

The atmosphere of puzzles and secrecy mixes here with a mood of grabbing what fun one can in a world where everything could be ended by a bomb, or where a loved one can be lost on a ship at sea, a victim of the U-boats that the de-coders are trying to stop. Osla in particular is full of life and I loved spending time with her, especially when she’s with the gallant Prince Philip. We know, of course, that this is a doomed love but it adds such a fun dash of romance to the novel, not to mention a delicious morsel of royal intrigue. The scenes set after the war in the Yorkshire asylum are distressing and disturbing and means that for much of the novel we wonder what on earth could have gone so wrong with these friends.

Kate Quinn writes so well and is wonderful at creating women who feel so real and genuine, even if they are highly unusual. The prose is compelling, the dialogue witty, and the story is fabulous. Bletchley Park isn’t an uncommon setting for a novel these days but it’s certainly viewed from a fresh perspective here – I loved the account of Churchill’s visit! The Rose Code is not a short book but it is a pleasure to read from start to finish.

Other review
Lady of the Eternal City

A Prince and A Spy by Rory Clements

Zaffre | 2021 (21 January) | 480p | Review copy | Buy the book

It is 1942 and a secret meeting takes place in Sweden. Prince George, the Duke of Kent, and brother to George VI, meets his cousin Prince Philipp von Hesse, a committed member of the Nazi Party and friend to Adolf Hitler. Ostensibly, they are there to discuss peace between their nations but there may well have been another reason, not least because the Duke should have been in Iceland, not Sweden. Discovering what that reason was becomes a matter of urgency to the secret service agencies of the UK, Germany and America when the plane carrying the Duke back to Scotland crashes for no good reason and all but one of the crew and passengers aboard are killed, including the Duke.

Professor Tom Wilde, an American don at Cambridge University and now also working for American secret operations in the UK, is despatched to Scotland to investigate, in particular to trace the mysterious woman believed to have survived the crash. It is only when he finds her that Tom discovers the tangled web of secrets and crimes that surround the Swedish meeting and the crash. His mission becomes urgent, not least because of who is on his tail.

Rory Clements is a master of historical spy thrillers, whether set in Elizabethan England (interestingly Tom Wild’s subject) or in the 1930s and 1940s. I am a huge fan of the Tom Wilde novels and they have been the reading highlight of January over the last five years. I was so excited to read A Prince and A Spy and I couldn’t read it fast enough – it is a fine spy thriller and a great addition to one of my favourite series. It is the fifth but it does stand alone well as each of the novels does. However, I think that you’d appreciate it more fully if you’ve read the others, which follow Tom and his partner Lydia through the pre-War years up to the outbreak of War and beyond, including their harrowing missions to Germany (I can never do justice to just how tense these books can be). Now we’ve reached the stage of the war at which Hitler and his men might be beginning to consider that the War is not entirely going their way and so the author covers another critical period of the War and the Duke of York’s crash is the perfect catalyst.

There is a sense in A Prince and A Spy that Tom Wilde may be in over his head as he realises that the truth he is chasing is critical to all countries with a vested interest in winning the War. Nobody can be trusted, even old allies. There are many welcome familiar faces in the novel but Tom is more of an outsider than ever. There are new people he must meet and rely upon, all of whom will be in as much danger as him. This is a different kind of mission for Tom. This time he must hide. He’s on the run. There’s a constant sense that he is always being watched, that he can never quite escape. Lydia, kept at home with their young son, feels increasingly isolated. This adds to the tension. Tom is almost on his own. Almost, but not quite.

There are some disturbing and harrowing scenes in A Prince and A Spy. They’re dealt with sensitively but they do linger in the mind, as they should, I think. Rory Clements is a fine historian. He has a fascinating grasp of the politics and intrigue of the time, which he conveys so well, but he’s also really good at the details. The novel is immersed in the early 1940s. It feels right. I find it amazing that the author is just as knowledgeable and insightful with the 1930s and 1940s as he is with the 1580s. I also really like the way that he finds parallels between the two periods, and their spy masters. This is clever stuff.

Tom Wilde is a fantastic character and I love that he’s a history professor. He understands the lessons of history and he knows the significance of his present day. There are some intriguing scenes when he comes up against politicians who seem to have a different perspective, tackling immediate crises rather than looking ahead to the long term. But, apart from all that, I really like Tom Wilde as a human being. He’s not a young man. He’s had a difficult past, which, one senses, he’s now been able to put behind him, and he’s strongly motivated by a need to do the right thing as well as protect those who need it. He’s also ruthless when he needs to be. Tom is a successful spy and agent for good reason. People are drawn to Tom Wilde. He’s likeable and earnest. His relationship with Lydia has altered him (Tom is different now from how he was at the beginning of the series). My only regret with A Prince and A Spy is that Lydia doesn’t play more of a part – she’s now the complaining housewife and mother when, in the past, she’s played such an active and positive role. I hope for better things for her in the future!

I thoroughly enjoyed A Prince and A Spy, reading it in just a couple of days, which is good for me in these Lockdown times. It’s engrossing and completely immersive. I’ve grown so fond of Tom over the last few years. It was good to spend time with him again – and in such a good story! The plot is excellent and I was hooked. The Duke’s death in an air crash is a true story and the prefect starting point for Rory Clements’ tale of spies and intrigue at this crucial stage of World War Two. The Nazis have Professor Tom Wilde in their sights now more than ever. I can’t wait for more.

Other reviews
Holy Spy
Corpus
Nucleus
Nemesis
Hitler’s Secret