The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
Queen High is CJ Carey’s sequel to her much acclaimed novel Widowland, both books are counter factual dystopian novels in a similar vein to 1984, Fatherland and Brave New World. They are set in a 1950s Britain where Lord Halifax became Prime Minister rather than...
Philip W. Blood, Birds of Prey is an extraordinary piece of work using groundbreaking research to produce an original book on the Second World War. Not an easy feat. Was this a story you discovered, or one you always wanted to tell? The book is both a narrative I was...
Lesley Yarranton, many congratulations on a fascinating story in Saving Munich 1945. What sort of man was Rupprecht Gerngross? American historian John Toland described him as “scholarly, cultured and good-natured – a most unlikely combination for a revolutionist”....
Seizing Eichmann He was walking down the street clutching a large bouquet of flowers, a smiling family man by the name of Ricardo Klement. He was looking forward to celebrating his silver wedding anniversary that evening. When he reached his house on Garibaldi Street...
Jimmy Burns’ biography of Walter Bell, charts the life of one of Britain’s most successful and influential intelligence officers. The fact that Bell is so little known outside of intelligence circles testifies to this success. Walter Bell appears to have been a...
Philip W. Blood, what first attracted you to the period or periods you work in? My fascination with twentieth-century warfare was ignited by several memorable moments in childhood. My father, an aircraft design engineer with Avro, introduced me to the fascinating...
How did the Ordinary German Soldier Behave During the War and the Holocaust? In 1997, I unearthed the war diaries of two Luftwaffe security battalions from the years 1942 to 1944. These diaries meticulously chronicled the battalion, company, platoon, and squad level...
You’ve written about the major events of the 20th century, such as WW2 and the Cold War – the attraction of the period of history, or do go for character and plot first? They are closely allied! However, it wasn’t until I was a parent myself that I began to reflect on...
It is more than thirty years since I first heard of a small group of German army officers rising up against Hitler in the dying days of the Nazi regime. I was a foreign correspondent sent to Berlin within days of the Wall being torn down, and had been tracking the...
Jimmy Burns, who was Walter Bell? When Water Bell died in January 2004, aged ninety-four, the details of his life-not least of his professional career in the British secret services during a defining period in the history of modern espionage and security-remained a...
