When the war with Nazi Germany sends five displaced children to her door, Dodie Fitznorton knows life in her quiet village will never be the same. Her once orderly home is now strewn with odd socks and abandoned toast crusts, and she gasps when she discovers a flea-infested ginger kitten hidden away upstairs. But the […]
Death of an Officer by Mark Ellis
London in the Spring of 1943. While Europe continues to suffer under the iron fist of Nazi occupation, Britain remains battered but unbowed. DCI Frank Merlin, already contending with a booming wartime crime wave in the capital, is confronted with a baffling case: the brutal murder of a respected doctor. Following a puzzling trail that […]
The Second World War crime boom
For criminals, 1939 to 1945 were “the golden years”, as a crime boom swept Britain, The blackout and the black market that rationing encouraged were a gift to them. Mark Ellis explains why law-breaking rose by 60 per cent during the Second World War. I am the author of a series of crime thrillers featuring […]
Tito: prisoner, partisan, president
Who was President Tito? A communist dictator who, against all odds, held the former Yugoslavia together, a partisan leader during the Second World War, a charismatic, but vain, man, says Hilary Green. She explains how she became interested in this man, who played such a large part in the history of the Balkan region. Until […]
The Soho Murder by Mike Hollow
In December, 1940, the area around St Paul’s Cathedral suffers a devastating air raid and the heart of British book publishing burns to the ground. Detective Inspector John Jago must break bad news to a woman sitting in the ruins of her business: her husband has been found murdered at their home in Soho. An […]
Blood Sacrifice by Douglas Jackson
It’s January, 1943. Warsaw is a city of the dead. In the ghetto, the last 50,000 Jews await their fate but, unlike those who preceded them to the death camps, they are prepared to fight to the end. Jan Kalisz, Kripo investigator and Resistance double agent, has promised to supply them with weapons. But how […]
Last Train to Freedom by Deborah Swift
As Soviet forces storm Lithuania, Zofia and her brother Jacek must flee to survive. A lifeline appears when Japanese consul Sugihara offers them visas on one condition: they must deliver a parcel to Tokyo. Inside lies intelligence on Nazi atrocities, evidence so explosive that Nazi and Soviet agents will stop at nothing to possess it. […]
Blitz Kids: celebrating the 80th anniversary of VE Day
On 8 May, 2025, it’s the 80th anniversary of VE Day. To mark the day, Duncan Barrett remembers the stories of the Blitz Kids, told to him by eyewitnesses who, as children, lived through the bombing of Britain’s cities during the Second World War. It’s 2012 and my partner Nuala and I are in the […]