Arriving in Rome in 1939 to work for the wealthy Montefalco family, Maddalena is homesick and alone. She finds solace – and love – in the beauty of the city, but as the war in Nazi-occupied Italy rages, she must make a devastating choice. In London, in 1997, after her mother Maddalena’s death, Beatrice Fremont […]
Syndrome K, the ‘disease’ that saved lives in occupied Rome
Sarah Freethy uncovers the extraordinary story of Syndrome K, the supposedly deadly disease that saved lives in German-occupied Rome in 1943. The Fatebenefratelli Hospital sits on an island in the south bend of the Tiber, in the heart of Rome. It looks as if a great ship beached itself between Trastevere and the Jewish Quarter, […]
Appointment in Paris by Jane Thynne
It’s April 1940, and Britain is in turmoil. Chamberlain’s government is faltering, and a German invasion may be only weeks away. A body, wearing the uniform of a Luftwaffe captain, is found in the grounds of Trent Park, a stately home and now a prison to house high level German POWs. Trent Park’s true purpose, […]
The Second Traitor by Alex Gerlis
It’s September, 1940, and British intelligence is desperately worried: the Nazi invasion of Britain is imminent. A sinister organisation called The Group, a collection of British and Irish Nazi collaborators, is at work trying to support Hitler’s plans… But that is not the only concern for the spy chiefs: the search for double agent ‘Archie’ […]
Blood Vengeance by Douglas Jackson
Christmas Day 1943, Arisaig, Scotland. The body of beautiful, well-connected Polish SOE agent Krystina Kowolska is found in the gardens of the country house where she’s been preparing for a vital mission to France. The question is, was she already dead when she was hanged? Two days later, resistance double agent, Investigator Jan Kalisz of […]
Review: The Second Traitor by Alex Gerlis
Alan Bardos reviews the new Second World War spy thriller from Alex Gerlis, The Second Traitor. The Second Traitor is the latest novel in Alex Gerlis’s Double Agent quartet, which follows the trials of two Soviet spies in the British Secret Service from the 1930s to the late 1950s; from the rise of Nazism to […]
Wartime Comes to West India Dock Road by Renita D’Silva
It’s 1940 and the Blitz rages, but life goes on in the heart of London’s East End. Charity has spent her life keeping her family together – raising her younger brothers, running the family boarding house on West India Dock Road, and now shielding her fragile parents from the relentless bombardment outside their door. When […]
Segregation and suffering in the cities of occupied Europe
Catherine Hokin looks at why ghettos were created in the cities of occupied Europe during the Second World War – places of segregation and also of suffering. My latest World War Two novel, The Secret Locket, tells a story that’s very much tied to its settings. Part of the book takes place in the Bavarian […]