The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
I write crime thrillers set in World War Two London. My hero is Frank Merlin, a tough and rugged police detective heading a Scotland Yard serious crimes unit. There are now five books so far in the series. It is my plan to follow Merlin’s adventures from beginning to...
Does Historical Fiction Ruin Our Historical Understanding? The Guardian newspaper used to have a column called Reel History in which the writer and historian, Alex von Tunzelmann, reviewed films in the context of historical accuracy. In her articles a host of minor or...
Patrick Worrall, many congratulations on The Partisan, your first novel. Its genesis is interesting in itself. You’ve described seeing a photograph in Lithuanian museum of three girls holding German guns. How did you come up with the story? There were three elements...
My first novel, The Partisan, is a story of love and revenge set in 1961, at the height of the Cold War, with long flashbacks to the Eastern Front at the end of World War Two. The history of Lithuania features heavily. This is largely due to chance: I happened to...
Racism & Murder in WW2 Hull I grew up in Cottingham – one of the claimants for largest village in England, but in effect, a suburb of the city of Hull – in the 1960s, in reality just a few years after the Second World War had ended, although as a child it seemed...
When the Nazis entered Prague in 1942, little did Amelia know how her life would change forever. However, she soon discovered that she could not let their hatred bend her, or even her tiniest hope of surviving Nazi cruelty would become a victim of their homicide will....
CVHF Highlights So Far Monday 20th June Power & Privilege: A Recent History Simon Kuper (author of Chums) & Richard Beard (Sad Little Men) discussed the corrosive impact of public schools and Oxford University on recent British political life. Their discussion...
By the close of 1943, the tides of the global war at sea had turned significantly in favour of the Allies. In the North Atlantic Doenitz’s wolf-packs were increasingly pulling back, relieving the pressure on Allied convoy lines. In the Mediterranean most of the inland...
The Flame of Resistance is part biography of Josephine Baker and part history of the British and French Secret Services in World War Two. The book focuses on the intelligence war fought across French North Africa, painting both a romantic and brutal portrait of the...
It seems so long ago; but once it was ‘all of our yesterdays’. My Burning Steel book is based on an oral history project interviewing the veterans of the 2nd Fife and Forfar Yeomanry (2nd F&FY) whilst working as the oral historian for the Imperial War Museum Sound...
