The Cold War is intensifying in 1949 and rumours abound that the Russians are close to creating an atomic bomb. Beattie Cavendish, special operative for a covert section of GCHQ, is sent to Scotland, to the listening station at Kilbray. Beattie’s arrival is greeted with suspicion by the station’s staff. She faces an uphill battle […]
The Drummond Affair: Murder and Mystery in Provence by Daniel Smith and Stephanie Matthews
1950s France. A British establishment figure. A shocking crime. A miscarriage of justice. The search for truth. In 1952, in a peaceful corner of Provence, a farmer’s son stumbled upon a terrible scene. Three bodies: a husband and wife shot dead, their ten-year-old daughter savagely beaten to death. They were all British. So begins one […]
The Berlin blockade, 1948–9: the first Cold War stand-off
Catherine Hokin, author of The Pilot’s Girl, looks at the Berlin Blockade of 1948–9 – the first Cold War stand-off – and how the western Allies responded. “History is written by the victors” is one of those phrases that is repeated so often it has turned into a cliché. To a writer interested in the […]
The Diplomat’s Wife by Michael Ridpath
It’s 1936. Devastated by the death of her beloved brother Hugh, Emma seeks to keep his memory alive by wholeheartedly embracing his dreams of a communist revolution. But when she marries an ambitious diplomat, she must leave her ideals behind and live within the confines of embassy life in Paris and Nazi Berlin. Then one […]
The Museum of Broken Promises by Elizabeth Buchan
The Museum of Broken Promises; a place of wonder, sadness … and hope. Inside lies a treasure trove of objects – a baby’s shoe, a wedding veil, a railway ticket – all revealing moments of loss and betrayal. It is a place where people come to speak to the ghosts of the past. The owner, […]
An Honest Man by Ben Fergusson
In West Berlin in 1989, eighteen-year-old Ralf has just left school and is living a final golden summer with his three best friends. They spend their days swimming, smoking and daydreaming about the future, oblivious to the storm gathering on the other side of the Berlin Wall. But an unsettling discovery about his family and […]