October 1940. Twenty-three-year-old Bobby Bancroft is working as a typist for a city newspaper, but she longs to be breaking the news herself. When she successfully applies for a junior reporter role at The Tyke, a magazine serving the Yorkshire Dales, she’s thrilled to be entering the world of journalism – even if she only […]
Paris Requiem by Chris Lloyd
Paris, September 1940, and after three months under Nazi Occupation, not much can shock Detective Eddie Giral. That is, until he finds a murder victim who was supposed to be in prison. Eddie knows, because he put him there. The dead man is not the first or the last criminal being let loose onto the […]
A Perfect Time to Murder by NR Daws
In January 1941 the Luftwaffe continues its assault on Britain from the sky, but ATA pilot Lizzie Hayes is grounded after a crash. Itching to be of use, she hears that DI Kember is investigating the death of a coal miner in Kent and sees her chance to help. They discover the miner died from […]
The bureaux d’achats: how the Nazis bled France dry
After the fall of France, the occupying Nazi regime began to bleed the country dry through blatant financial exploitation. Parisians found even the most basic foodstuffs hard to get, largely because of the activities of the notorious bureaux d’achats. Chris Lloyd, author of Paris Requiem, explains what happened. “Ils nous prennent tout.” As Parisians queued […]
Agent in the Shadows by Alex Gerlis
It’s June, 1943. In Lyon, the capital of the French resistance, a secret meeting is held under orders from General de Gaulle. The objective is to unite all resistance factions. The future of France is on the line. But when the meeting is raided by the Gestapo under Klaus Barbie, the ‘Butcher of Lyon’, the […]
Historia extract: Paris Requiem by Chris Lloyd
In an exclusive extract for Historia readers, we bring you the beginning of award-winning historical crime author Chris Lloyd’s new book, Paris Requiem, the second in his Eddie Giral series of noir novels following a troubled Parisian policeman in the early days of Nazi occupation. The Unwanted Dead, which won the HWA Gold Crown Award […]
The Girl in the Photo by Catherine Hokin
Czechoslovakia, Theresienstadt Concentration Camp, 1944. ‘I have to go away, my darling. Please, be brave, stay alive, for me.’ Her mother’s voice breaks. The little girl tries to stop the forbidden tears from falling, as the train takes her mother, and she is left alone. Berlin, six years later. Hanni Winter shows her new husband […]
The legacy of the village of Lidice
When the Nazi occupiers of the former Czech province of Bohemia, in an act of revenge, obliterated the village of Lidice and killed or transported its inhabitants, they did so intending that its very name should be erased from history. Yet Lidice soon became a symbol of the horrors of fascism and its name was […]