The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
Robert Harris’ new novel Precipice begins in the long summer of 1914 when Europe sleepwalked into a disastrous war and the stalemate of the Western Front. Harris moves between romance, espionage and political intrigue, placing at the centre of these events the affair...
Leaving Fatherland is journalist Matt Graydon’s debut novel and begins in Halbe, Germany during the inter-war period and is set against the rise of the Nazis. We are introduced to Oskar Bachmann, a shy schoolboy desperate to gain his father’s approval but often...
The first thing that strikes you about KAOS is its audacious tone. Writer Charlie Covell, known for their work on The End of the F**ing World*, infuses the series with a sharp wit and a modern sensibility. The standout performances come from the gods themselves. Janet...
The Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 was a complex operation that required precise information about the movement and disposition of the US Pacific Fleet, based at Hawaii. This information was gathered on the ground by a spy named Takeo...
Simon, your novel Para Bellum is set during the Gothic Wars and this is we're towards the end of the fourth century, but we're talking the Gothic Wars, specifically 376AD to 382BC. It is the slow but certain disintegration of the Roman Empire. It’s momentous times,...
Dead Ground is a World War II thriller of the highest order and continues Graham Hurley’s “non-linear” The Spoils of War series, with each book covering a different aspect of World War II. The last book The Blood of Others was set around the Dieppe Raid in 1942. The...
Alec Marsh, many congrats on the new book. This is your fourth Drabble & Harris thriller. What’s happened to our two heroes since Ghosts of the West? The big development is that Ernest Drabble has got married to Charlotte Moore whom he met in Ghosts of the West....
In the years just before the First World War, a boy was growing up in Imperial India. He was obstinate and full of life. Still a toddler, he chatted to the servants in Hindustani. His father nicknamed him Kim, after the spy hero of Rudyard Kipling’s novel, who could...
Black Horsemen: Numidian Light Cavalry I am currently writing the first book in a new series, out in 2025, centred during the time of the Second Punic War, 218 - 201 BC. It is a fascinating period and one that I previously knew little about, other than some of the...
Adam Sisman, can you first tell us about the genesis of the book, The Secret Life of John le Carré? This shorter work serves as a coda to your full-length biography (although it can be read without being familiar with that work). When did you initially have the idea...
