Category: Read

My Week in Books – 21st January 2024

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MyWeekinBooksOn What Cathy Read Next last week

Monday – I shared my sign-up post for the What’s in a Name 2024reading challenge.

Tuesday – This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was Bookish Goals for 2024. I also published my review of Back Trouble by Clare Chambers.

Wednesday – As always WWW Wednesday is a weekly opportunity to share what I’ve just read, what I’m currently reading and what I plan to read next… and to take a peek at what others are reading. I also shared my review of historical thriller, Munich Wolf by Rory Clements.

Thursday – I published my sign-up post for the When Are You Reading? Challenge 2024. 

New arrivals

Who’s been allowed to run amok on NetGalley…again?

Where the Wind Calls HomeWhere the Wind Calls Home by Samar Yazbek, trans. by Leri Price (eARC, World Editions via NetGalley)

Ali, a nineteen-year-old soldier in the Syrian army, lies on the ground beneath a tree. He sees a body being lowered into a hole—is this his funeral? There was that sudden explosion, wasn’t there … While trying to understand the extend of the damage, Ali works his way closer to the tree. His ultimate desire is to fly up to one of its branches, to safety.

Through rich vignettes of Ali’s memories, we uncover the hardships of his traditional Syrian Alawite village, but also the richness and beauty of its cultural and religious heritage. Yazbek here explores the secrets of the Alawite faith and its relationship to nature and the elements in a tight poetic novel dense with life and hope and love.

AfterlightAfterlight by Jaap Robben, trans. by David Doherty (eARC, World Editions via NetGalley)

The young free-spirited florist Frieda grew up in a strictly Catholic environment in the 1960s. When she steps onto a frozen river on a late winter afternoon, little does she know that everything is about to change for her. On the ice, she meets the married Otto. They experience a love that begins stormy and ends with Frieda becoming pregnant – a scandal in the world in which she moves. And so she must never be the mother of her secret child. For decades she kept her memories of this episode in her life to herself. But the grief for the lost child remains, despite the later marriage, despite the son she still has. At the age of eighty-one, Frieda is suddenly alone again. The silent sorrow returns with force. Only then does she dare to face her story – and to share it. 

To Kill a KingTo Kill a King (Master of War #8) by David Gilman (eARC, Head of Zeus via NetGalley)

Bordeaux, 1367. Having angered the bloodthirsty Don Pedro, King of Castile, Sir Thomas Blackstone is thoroughly sick of his mission for the Prince of Wales, but must remain true to his oath. But this is the Hundred Years’ War, and tensions are rising once more.

With the Prince of Wales deeply unpopular in his Aquitainian lands, Blackstone, King Edward’s Master of War, must return to French soil to help stem the tide of support for the King of France.

Meanwhile, Henry, Blackstone’s son, faces an incognito ride across France with his own motley band of outlaws and mercenaries. But the French are aware of the younger Blackstone’s journey, and see a perfect way to target the Master of War…

DivaDiva by Daisy Goodwin (eARC, Aria via NetGalley)

In the glittering and ruthlessly competitive world of opera, Maria Callas is known simply as la divina: the divine one. With her glorious voice, instinctive flair for the dramatic and striking beauty, she’s the toast of the grandest opera houses in the world. Yet her fame has been hard won: raised in Nazi-occupied Greece by a mother who mercilessly exploited her, Maria learned early in life how to protect herself.

When she meets the fabulously rich shipping magnate, Aristotle Onassis, her isolation melts away. For the first time in her life, she believes she’s found a man who sees the woman rather than the legendary soprano. Desperately in love, Onassis introduces her to a life of unbelievable luxury, mixing with celebrities like Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.

And then, suddenly, it’s over. The international press announce that Onassis will marry the most famous woman in the world, former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, leaving Maria to pick up the pieces.

How to Make a BombHow to Make a Bomb by Rupert Thomson (eARC, Apollo via NetGalley)

Philip Notman, an acclaimed historian, attends a conference in Bergen, Norway. On his return to London, and to his wife and son, something unexpected and inexplicable happens to him, and he is unable to settle back into his normal life.

Seeking answers, he flies to Cadiz to see Inés, a Spanish academic with whom he shared a connection at the conference, but his journey doesn’t end there. A chance encounter with a wealthy, elderly couple sends him to a house on the south coast of Crete. Is he thinking of leaving his wife, whom he claims he still loves, or is he trying to change a reality that has become impossible to bear? Is he on a quest for a simpler and more authenticexistence, or is he utterly self-deluded?

As he tries to make sense of both his personal circumstances and the world surrounding him, he finds himself embarking on a course of action that will push him to the very brink of disaster.

The Book of SecretsThe Book of Secrets by Anna Mazzola (eARC, Orion via NetGalley)

Months after the plague ravaged Rome, men are still dying in unnatural numbers, and rumour has it that their corpses do not decay. The Papal authorities commission lieutenant governor Stefano Bracchi to investigate as subtly as he can.

Meanwhile, to the north of the city, Anna Maria Aldobrandini, Duchess of Cesi, is trapped in an abusive relationship with a much older man she was made to marry when she was only a girl. Her friend, Sulpizia Vitelleschi, is in a similar position, but there is no prospect of divorce or escape. To the south, Cecilia Verzellina fears that, once her jealous son-in-law is released from prison, he will kill her beautiful daughter.

Bracci’s investigation at the Tor di Nona will introduce him to horror, magic and an unthinkable discovery. And he begins to wonder: should certain deeds should remain forever unpunished…

On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

  • Book Review: Perfume River by Robert Olen Butler
  • Book Review: The Slowworm’s Song by Andrew Miller
  • Book Review: History of Wolves by Emily Fridlund

Book Review – Munich Wolf by Rory Clements

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About the Book

Book cover of Munich Wolf by Rory Clements

Munich, 1935 – The Bavarian capital is a magnet for young, aristocratic Britons who come to learn German, swim in the lakes and drink beer in the cellars.

What they don’t see – or choose to ignore – is the brutal underbelly of the Nazi movement which considers Munich its spiritual home.

When a high-born English girl is murdered, Detective Sebastian Wolff is ordered to solve the crime. Wolff is already walking a tight line between doing his job and falling foul of the political party he abhors. Now Hitler is taking a personal interest in the case.

Followed by the secret police and threatened by his own son, a fervent member of the Hitler Youth, the stakes have never been higher. And when Wolff begins to suspect that the killer might be linked to the highest reaches of the Nazi hierarchy, he fears his task is simply impossible – and that he might become the next victim.

Format: ebook (400 pages) Publisher: Zaffre
Publication date: 18th January 2024 Genre: Historical Fiction, Crime, Thriller

Find Munich Wolf on Goodreads

My Review

I’m a huge fan of Rory Clements’ novels. I loved his John Shakespeare historical crime series set in Elizabethan England comprising Martyr, Revenger, Prince, Traitor, The Heretics, The Queen’s Man and Holy Spy. And I absolutely adore his Tom Wilde series set in WW2 Cambridge comprising (so far) Corpus, Nucleus, Nemesis, Hitler’s Secret, A Prince and a Spy, The Man in the Bunker and The English Führer. [Related posts: Book Review – Hitler’s Secret, Book Review – A Prince and a Spy, Book Review – The English Führer]

So I came to Munich Wolf with high expectations; I wasn’t disappointed. Sebastian Wolff is, if you like, Tom Wilde’s German alter ego. Like Wilde, he has a strong sense of justice. And in the same way Wilde has his trusty Rudge Special motorcycle, Wolff has his beloved Lancia Augusta cabriolet. But in their personal lives they differ. Wolff’s barely disguised loathing for Hitler’s regime has created a breach in his relationship with his son Jurgen, who is a fervent admirer of the Führer and a member of the Hitler Youth. It’s only when an act of violence comes close to home for Jurgen that their frosty relationship thaws a little.

The book sees Wolff’s commitment to uncovering the truth come slap bang up against political interests, both domestic and international. There’s a quite complex structure of different security and police institutions, but stick with it. Given the period in which it’s set and what we now know about the dreadful acts perpetrated by the Nazi regime, it’s probably no surprise that the story goes to some dark, sinister and perverted places, places populated by fanatics. ‘Paganism, ritual murder, sex magic, the Thule Society [a German occultist and Völkisch group founded in Munich shortly after World War I], Hitler’s obsession with the occult, the runic symbol for the sun, the geblōt places of ancient Nordic sacrifices…’

In pursuing his investigation, Wolff faces personal risks but he doggedly persists resulting in confrontations with some particularly ruthless individuals and a spell in a concentration camp. He’s also hampered in his enquiries by being assigned an assistant, Sergeant Hans Winter, with whom Wolff had already had an inauspicious first meeting, and who in reality is his minder, informing his bosses in the Bavarian Political Police (the forerunner of the Gestapo) about Wolff’s movements. Things really hot up when Wolff gets a little too close to implicating some influential figures in the regime.

Real life figures abound, in particular English socialite Unity Mitford who as well as coming across as an utter snob, shows herself to be an antisemite and vile apologist for the Nazi regime.

Sebastian Wolff is a great character. He’s a man of action but the author has also given him an interesting personal hinterland. (He’s rather swoonworthy as well.) Although badged as a standalone novel, I can see Munich Wolf being the first book in a series – in fact, I’d be overjoyed if it is.

Action-packed, full of twists and turns, and with fascinating historical detail, Munich Wolf is another powerful thriller from the pen of Rory Clements. If you were a fan of the late lamented Philip Kerr’s Bernie Gunther series, this is one for you.

In three words: Gripping, intriguing, pacy
Try something similar: March Violets by Philip Kerr

About the Author

Author Rory Clements

Rory Clements was born on the edge of England in Dover. After a career in national newspapers, he now writes full time in a quiet corner of Norfolk, where he lives with his wife, the artist Naomi Clements Wright. He won the CWA Historical Dagger in 2010 for his second novel, Revenger, and the CWA Historical Dagger in 2018 for Nucleus. Three of his other novels – Martyr, Prince and The Heretics – have been shortlisted for awards.

Connect with Rory
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