This is the incredible true story of Elżbieta Zawacka, the WW2 resistance fighter known as ‘Zo’. The only woman to reach London from Warsaw during the Second World War as an emissary of the Polish Home Army command, Zo undertook two missions in the capital before secret Special Operations Executive training in the British countryside. […]
Green Ink by Stephen May
David Lloyd George is at Chequers for the weekend with his mistress Frances Stevenson, fretting about the fact that his involvement in selling public honours is about to be revealed by one Victor Grayson. Victor is a bisexual hedonist and former firebrand socialist MP turned secret-service informant. Intent on rebuilding his profile as the leader […]
Sell Us the Rope by Stephen May
‘When it’s time to hang the capitalists, they will sell us the rope.’ May 1907. Young Stalin – poet, bank-robber, spy – is in London for the 5th Congress of the Russian Communist Party. As he builds his power base in the party, Stalin manipulates alliances with Lenin, Trotsky and Rosa Luxemburg under the eyes […]
Midnight in Vienna by Jane Thynne
As war looms over Britain and there is talk of gas masks and blackout, people are understandably jumpy and anxious. Stella Fry, who’s been working in Vienna for a Jewish family, returns home with no job and a broken heart. She answers an advertisement from a famous mystery writer, Hubert Newman, who needs a manuscript […]
Grace and Favour at Hampton Court Palace
When Neil Daws was asked to work with Historic Royal Palaces on a cosy crime historical novel set in Hampton Court Palace he agreed enthusiastically – well, who wouldn’t? He tells us about some of the unusual places and characters he came across while researching Murder at the Palace, which is set in Hampton Court‘s […]
Madame Matisse by Sophie Haydock
This is the story of three women — one an orphan and refugee who finds a place in the studio of a famous French artist, the other a wife and mother who has stood by her husband for nearly forty years. The third is his daughter, caught in the crossfire between her mother and a […]
The ultimatum that changed Matisse for ever
Seething passion and scandal are absent from most accounts of Henri Matisse, says Sophie Haydock, author of Madame Matisse. Yet, after four decades of devoted marriage, his wife issued an ultimatum that changed everything. Here Sophie writes about the three woman in Matisse’s life. Henri Matisse was 69 years old when his wife, Amélie – […]
The Wire and the Lines by Patrick Larsimont
Summer, 1943, and when fighter pilot Jox McNabb crashes on the wrong side of the straits of Messina, he is captured by the Germans. It seems that for Jox, the war might be over. But Jox is never one to give up. Desperate to escape, he quickly familiarises himself with the camp and gets to […]