Tag: Reading Challenges

Book Review – Evil in High Places by Rory Clements

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About the Book

The closer you get, the further you have to fall…

Munich, 1936. All eyes are on the Bavarian capital for the upcoming Olympic Games. As athletes fight for gold and the Nazis fight for power, Detective Sebastian Wolff faces a battle of his own.

A famous actress has disappeared and Wolff has been ordered to find her, fast. But Elena Lang is no ordinary she is the mistress of Joseph Goebbels – Hitler’s right-hand-man in the party that Wolff despises.

But this is a country on the brink of war, and corruption runs deep. In a search that will take him from high society to the city’s darkest corners, Wolff will soon learn just how fine the line is between justice and jeopardy…

Format: Hardcover (416 pages) Publisher: Viking
Publication date: 28th August 2025 Genre: Historical Fiction, Thriller

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My Review

Evil in High Places sees the return of Sebastian Wolff who hates what Germany has become under the Nazis (surely the epitome of evil in high places) but whose sense of justice compels him to continue in his role as Captain of Detectives in the Kripo. ‘He didn’t like the present government, but that wasn’t unusual. His job was to solve crimes and bring murderers to court; their politics meant nothing to him.’ It’s not essential to have read the previous book, Munich Wolf, to enjoy this one as the author includes salient details about Wolff’s past. In fact he continues to flesh out Wolff’s back story including events from his younger days.

At times Wolff struggles to conceal his hatred for the Nazi regime and those who hang on its coat-tails such as vile Hitler acolyte Unity Mitford. The feeling is mutual in this case and you suspect she’d like nothing better than to see Wolff transported to Dachau. (He had a taste of that in the previous book.) The expected Heil Hitler salute is always something of an effort for Wolff and done only for necessity. His professional life is made more difficult by having a boss who’s more interested pleasing his superiors than bringing the real culprits to justice. His view is round up some suspects and interrogate them until they confess. Result: case closed. It’s the exact opposite of Wolff’s approach.

It’s not all rosy in Wolff’s personal life either. His relationship with his son is fraught given Jurgen is a member of the Hitler Youth and It’s not unknown for people to denounce family members for displaying anti-Nazi sentiment. Wolff is engaged to the beautiful Hexie but she’s running out of patience with him for not setting a date for their wedding. To top it all an important figure from Wolff’s past makes an unexpected, and not entirely welcome, appearance.

Wolff soon has more on his plate than just a missing persons case. Under strict orders that nothing, not even suspicious deaths, must disrupt the Winter Olympics (‘Same rule applies – no murders in Bavaria while the Games last’), he finds himself hampered in his investigation at every turn. When he does start to make progress he finds himself in dangerous territory, coming up against powerful individuals who have no compunction about silencing those who threaten them. As he observes, ‘One policeman against the might of Germany’s wealthiest family and the unchallenged power of Himmler’s SS.’ On the bright side – for readers at least – it means we get some exciting scenes and narrow escapes.

Wolff is not the only one taking risks. Sergeant Hans Winter, seconded from the Berlin Political Police, initially to keep an eye on Wolff, discovered unwelcome information about himself in the last book. Something that if made public would scupper his marriage plans, threaten his career and possibly his life. It leads him to undertake a highly dangerous undercover mission, ostensibly to obtain information about a suspect in the investigation, but really to obtain something he would be unable to get on the outside.

Evil in High Places is a terrific historical thriller with a satisfyingly twisty plot, a constant sense of jeopardy and plenty of drama. The period and setting are brilliantly evoked. And there a tantalising hint at the end that this isn’t the last we’ll see of Sebastian Wolff.

I received a review copy courtesy of Viking via NetGalley.

In three words: Gripping, atmospheric, suspenseful
Try something similar: A Death in Berlin by Simon Scarrow

About the Author

Rory Clements writes full time in a quiet corner of Norfolk. He was raised all over the world while his father served in the Royal Navy, an experience that went on to inspire Rory’s beloved historical thrillers. Previously a journalist for various papers, he is now a Sunday Times bestselling author, two-time winner and three-time nominee of the CWA Historical Dagger Award. His books have sold over 1 million copies to date.

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Book Review – The Summer House Party by Caro Fraser #20BooksofSummer2025

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About the Book

In the gloriously hot summer of 1936, a group of people meet at a country house party. Within three years, England will be at war, but for now, time stands still.

Dan Ranscombe is clever and good-looking, but he resents the wealth and easy savoir faire of fellow guest, Paul Latimer. Surely a shrewd girl like Meg Slater would see through that, wouldn’t she? And what about Diana, Paul’s beautiful sister, Charles Asher, the Jewish outsider, Madeleine, restless and dissatisfied with her role as children’s nanny? And artist Henry Haddon, their host, no longer young, but secure in his power as a practised seducer.

As these guests gather, none has any inkling the choices they make will have fateful consequences, lasting through the war and beyond. Or that the first unforeseen event will be a shocking death.

Format: Hardback (512 pages) Publisher: Head of Zeus
Publication date: 6th April 2017 Genre: Historical Fiction

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My Review

The Summer House Party is book 5 of my 20 Books of Summer 2025. Shamefully, it has been on my bookshelf since the publishers sent me a copy back in 2017. It was only once I started reading the book that I remembered I’d read the sequel, Summer of Love, in 2018. That book focuses on the post-war lives of the characters, including those who are only children in this book.

I remarked in my review of Summer of Love that there were spoilers from this book, even in the blurb, and I now realise why the consequences of some of the events in this book – including an extremely significant one – felt under-developed. Presumably, it was always intended there should be a sequel. I don’t think I would be alone in finding it frustrating for some things to be left hanging at the end of this book.

I confess that for a lot of the book I found very little to like about many of the characters. Their lives seemed very self-idulgent and remote from those of ordinary people. Diana’s hedonistic lifestyle is a whirlwind of cocktail parties, boozy lunches and night clubs. It’s all ‘simply too divine’. She’s pretty free with her sexual favours too. Conversely her brother Paul is a straightlaced and rather pompous individual who eulogizes male friendship, has a very dismissive attitude to women and expresses views which border on the anti-Semitic. Dan is a philanderer who views every woman as a potential conquest so his professions of love are rather difficult to believe. Meg comes across as very naive and eager to please. For some unfathomable reason, she idolises Paul. Sonia, wife of artist Henry Haddon, is the perfect hostess but has a strangely distant relationship with her young daughter Avril who is invariably consigned to the care of a nanny. Sonia seems unable to see that Avril’s frequent tantrums are a result of this neglect, especially since Avril’s father is usually cloistered away in his study.

The days consist of a seemingly endless round of cocktails, long lunches and idle chitchat with a few games of tennis thrown in. Events in Europe (this is 1936) seem far away with more concern given to the difiiculty of finding reliable servants than what may be on the horizon. The only concession to world events is Charles Asher’s announcement that he is off to fight in the Spanish Civil War, greeted with particular dismay by Paul. During the house party at Woodbourne House there’s a lot of flirtation and late night knocks at bedroom doors. The relationships that form that summer, including the love triangle that is at the heart of the book, have repercussions that persist for years.

Meg, finding herself in a rather sterile marriage, struggles with the competing demands of love and responsibility. Trying to ‘have her cake and eat it’ means deceiving those around her in order to find snatched moments of happiness, usually followed by intense feelings of guilt on her part. Despite the risk of discovery, she is unable to find the courage to commit wholly one way or the other. It’s a situation that cannot continue, with tragic consequences.

Once war breaks out, I found the characters became more appealing as we see other sides to their characters. Sonia discovers life can be lived without servants doing everything for you and rises to the challenge of keeping the household supplied with food. Woodbourne House becomes a place of refuge as German bombing raids on London intensify. Dan and Paul demonstrate courage whilst on active service. And Meg experiences first-hand what many in London are suffering leaving her with an intense feeling of displacement.

The book perfectly captures the milieu of upper class society in the years before World War Two, epitomised by the carefree atmosphere of a summer house party in an idyllic setting. The travails of the war years intervene bringing with them a sense that some social changes are irreversible (even if Sonia does still yearn for the days when a servant would draw her bath for her). The book demonstrates the very complicated nature of human relationships. Indeed, to quote from Sir Walter Scott’s poem Marmion, ‘Oh what a tangled we we weave, when first we practice to deceive’.

Caro Fraser sadly died in April 2020.

In three words: Romantic, engaging, evocative
Try something similar: The Light Years by Elizabeth Jane Howard

About the Author

Caro Fraser was the author of the Caper Court novels, based on her own experiences as a lawyer.

The daughter of George MacDonald Fraser, author of the Flashman novels, she died in April 2020.