The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
Mark, you’ve created quite the character in Frank Merlin. What sort of man is he? Frank Merlin is a man in his early 40s as the series starts. He holds the rank of Detective Chief Inspector and heads a Scotland Yard serious crimes unit. Merlin is an extremely, brave,...
Have you ever wondered about the history of a building or a place as you rush past, busy with life, and have never had the opportunity to stop and investigate it further? Millions of people walking through the U.K.’s towns, cities and landscapes every single day of...
The Blood of Others is the latest instalment of the Spoils of War, Graham Hurley’s non-linear series with returning characters that spans World War II. The Blood of Others tells the story of Operation Jubilee, a combined operations raid carried out by Canadian and...
Roger, firstly, can you tell us a little bit about the origins of your latest book? Who were the forgers and how did you find out about their story? The forgers were a group of Polish diplomats and Jewish activists – known as the Ładoś Group – who were illegally...
Just over a decade ago, I started working on a two-volume series on the North American Aviation Mustang, chiefly aimed at modellers and warbird enthusiasts. The two volumes were respectively to cover the Allison-engined and Packard Merlin-engined versions of the...
Graham Hurley your new novel The Blood of Others, is a thriller about the disastrous raid on Dieppe in August 1942. What was it that drew you to the story? A while ago, as a documentary producer with ITV, I made a series of revisionist films to mark various WW2...
Do you think Bill Slim’s ideas surrounding courage and morale can be applied to modern-day warfare? Absolutely. They’re timeless. All soldiers need to be motivated to fight. Napoleon described ‘the moral to the physical as three is to one’. To be motivated, soldiers...
The Buckingham History Festival, which takes place in the celebrated market town over the weekend of 15-17 September, is one that subscribers to Aspects of History will relish. There’s a particular emphasis this year on the Early Modern period – which is no surprise...
Michael Smith, what first attracted you to the period you work in? First and foremost, I’m an aviation geek. Much as I like contemporary aircraft, I’m fascinated by historic aviation. In the context of world history, aviation is a modern-day technology, yet it’s been...
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising In all my novels, there are a number of plot lines which converge at the end of the book, but in my new book, Agent in Peril the core plot is based around the Battle of the Ruhr in 1943, the RAF’s bombing campaign from March-July that year...
