World War 2 – nigeladamsbookworm

Deaths Head

Michael Alexander McCarthy

I’m going to start this review with a quote from the book.

“He had been so engrossed in his grandfather’s journal that he read on into the late afternoon without stopping to eat or make himself a drink”

That s exactly what happened to me reading this book. I read, and read and read. This was as close as I’ve gotten to a one sitting read in a long time.

It transformed me back to reading one of my earliest favourite authors, Sven Hassel, and his stories of a band of German Soldiers during WWII.

No glamour, just the horrors of war. The conflict of the regular soldier carrying out orders of delusional, psychopathic, leaders and the gradual numbing of their own moral compasses until they fought as much for their own survival, as they did for the “greater cause”

So who is reading what journal.

David Strachan is a successful business man living in Singapore. He receives notice that his grandfather had passed away in Scotland, and as the next of kin he returns to oversee the clearing of the house and arrange the funeral.

What he finds is that the nice Polish Grandfather he knew was not the person he thought he was.

And Grandad has left a journal relating his early life on the Poland German border, and the fact that as Hitlers war machine was gearing up for war, he had joined the notorious SS.

The journal would have made a great standalone book on its own but wrapped up in the consequences of the effect it will have on Strachan, and what happens after he has finished the journal, this makes for a story which is a cut above.

The story contained in the journal reminded me a lot of the Sven Hassel books but also of the best war book I’ve ever read, The Forgotten Soldier by Guy Sajer. The parallels with this book are striking, especially the traumatic psychological effects the experiences of the young soldiers have on them.

A must read.

Published by Rogue Maille Publishing. Print length 395 pages

The Huntress. Kate Quinn

This is conundrum of a story, but don’t let that put you off.

Four stories in one, all set in different time periods, all integral to the main story, and all charging to a brilliant conclusion.

During the war.

The Huntress. A killer, a woman working for, or in sympathy, with the German SS during World War Two. A woman who has escaped the war crimes hearings in Nuremberg.

Nina Markov. A Russian woman with a passion for flying. One of Stalin’s famous Night Witches. A woman with a very good reason for finding the Huntress.

After the war

Ian and Tony, two men who specialise in finding war criminals and bringing them to trial, but one woman is right at the top of Ian’s list. The Huntress was responsible for killing his brother, and he wants to see her face her crimes.

Jordan McBride. A young woman in America dreaming of becoming a photographer covering wars around the world. Her father, a widow has a new woman in his life, Anneliese, a woman that Jordan is convinced is a not telling the truth about her past.

This story is magnificent in the way it is told. The storylines of all of the main characters interweave from start to finish. The way the author establishes the crimes committed by the Huntress during the war is clever.

Introducing Nina as one of the famous Night Witches of the Soviet Aviation Group 122 is perfect for the story. I thought I was good on my Second World War history, but I’d never heard of this group. A quick Google search led me down an internet wormhole that lasted for hours whilst I read about this extraordinary group of woman.

Tony’s story, and the story about the tracking down of the illusive Huntress after the war, is the main backbone of the book and it is one of those tales which has you reading well into the night.

But will you guess the end of the story? Is everybody who they appear to be? Are the allegiances that are formed all they seem to be. Will the Huntress get caught?

There’s only one way to find out. Read the book, and I have to say it’s up there in my best books read this year.

Pages: 560

Publisher: Harper Collins

Available now.

A Treachery of Spies. Manda Scott

Two great stories rolled into one. A second world war espionage story that Len Deighton would have been proud of, and a modern crime story worthy of any of the present day authors writing excellent crime fiction.

The murder of an elderly lady in Orleans, France, is a horrible crime at the best of times. The fact that she has been executed and then mutilated, in a very specific manner, makes the crime even more hideous.

Enter Captain Ines Picaut of the French Police, and her small team. Picaut is recently returned to work having been badly burnt in a house fire but us soon into her stride.

The team tentatively identify the woman and link her to a production company making a TV series about a band of French Resistance Fighters during the Second World War.

The investigation will lead them to start to uncovering facts about the dead woman, and the part she played in the Resistance.

Here starts the second story. That of spies, double agents and treachery. The story of a young woman that escapes from occupied Europe and is trained as an agent that can work with the Resistance. She will work behind enemy lines with agents from across Europe and with French citizens trying to free their own country.

Whilst in France she will encounter; French people who sympathise with the Germans and see the retribution that is brought on them by their own Countrymen; she will have to work with people she despises and decide on which of the people she likes will die.

The small band that makes up her group all seem to have the same allegiances, but have they??

Who is on her side, and who feeding the enemy information.

As the two stories unfold, the modern day investigation, and the second world war drama, identities are uncovered. Nobody is who they seem, and somebody is acting as puppet master, pulling all the strings, but to what end.

I have used no names, except for the present day Police Captain’s, in this review. There is a good reason for that. Some of the characters in this book have multiple identities, because they have worked for different countries and different agencies. To use any of the names might be a bit of a spoiler to the story.

And this is an excellent story that I would hate to spoil for anybody.

Amongst most new fiction this is a tomb of a book at nearly 500 pages. Every page is a pleasure to read. The pace of the book is frantic but very enjoyable.

I have loved WW II stories since I was a young teenager, and I may be being nostalgic, but reading this book has made me wish there were more being written today.

Pages: 480

Publisher: Bantam Press, Random House

Publishing Date: 9th August 2018