The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
Pirate, The Redeemed Detective is the latest of your Inspector Lafarge novels, but we’re now in 1947 and he’s been through much. How has his character changed since The Tortured Detective which starts in 1942? He has certainly been through the wringer, emotionally...
In many respects, it seemed as if the year of 1943 commenced with the war in Eastern Europe finely poised. The German Sixth Army was surrounded in Stalingrad and much of the southern sector of the long front line was highly fluid, with Soviet units attempting to push...
Hero City: Leningrad 1943–44 St Petersburg, Petrograd, Leningrad, St Petersburg. Peter the Great’s window on the world, the birthplace of the Bolshevik Revolution and of Vladimir Putin. It has always been seen as occupying a strategic position, although its geographic...
The V2 - Weapon of Vengeance Shortly before 7pm on Friday 8th September 1944, a huge explosion ripped through Staveley Road in Chiswick, London, killing a 63 year-old woman, a 3 year-old girl and a 28 year-old soldier from the Royal Engineers, who was home on leave. A...
John, congratulations on the publication of your new novel Target Arnhem. It’s a great World War II story, combining battlefield action with a nail biting espionage plot. Could you tell us a bit about the different storylines? Thank you Alan. This is the second...
Amidst stiff competition from his fellow tyrants Reinhard Heydrich has a strong claim to be the 20th century’s most evil monster: even an awed Adolf Hitler called him ‘the man with the Iron heart’. For when this tall blonde epitome of the Nazi Aryan ideal was...
Historical Heroes: Patrick Leigh Fermor There was a moment during Patrick Leigh Fermor’s daring operation to kidnap a German general and spirit him out of Crete that made me realise Paddy is my ‘Historical Hero.’ I read about it again recently in Artemis Cooper’s...
Coming of Age at 18: Alice Loxton Interview Alice, I wondered what were you doing when you were when you were 18? I probably had a pretty conventional 18 year old life, I think, in that I was just completing my A-levels and was looking to university. I was very...
Diana, many congratulations on your new book, the story of ‘André’ Joseph Scheinmann. How did you find out about this extraordinary man? His son and I were classmates at Harvard, though we never met at university there. When Michel discovered, in our 25th reunion...
Wilfred ‘Biffy’ Dunderdale often features as a daring bit-part player in World War II espionage books, but now this extraordinary character takes centre stage in Tim Spicer’s insightful biography. Dunderdale was an iron fist in a velvet glove. He combined charm with...
