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Book Review – Invitation from a Dictator by Rory Clements @VikingBooksUK #20BOS26

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About the Book

On the eve of war, a royal guest is lured into Hitler’s deadly web…

Munich, 1937. The Duke and Duchess of Windsor have arrived in Germany for a historic meeting at Hitler’s mountain retreat.

But recent attacks by ruthless Communist band, Red Freedom, has brought fear and bloodshed to the area. As brutal as the Nazis, their next targets are Edward, Wallis and the Fuhrer himself.

Detective Sebastian Wolff is charged with their protection, but the conflict between his job and his politics becomes even more complicated when Wolff realises who is behind Red Freedom: Ulrike, his first love and the mother of his son.

Format: Hardcover (400 pages) Publisher: Viking
Publication date: 13th August 2026 Genre: Historical Fiction

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My Review

I was a fan of Rory Clements’ John Shakespeare series, I’m a fan of his Tom Wilde series (present tense because I hope we get another one soon) and I’m now a fan of this series featuring Berlin detective Sebastian Wolff. Invitation from a Dictator follows on from Munich Wolf and Evil in High Places but don’t worry if you haven’t read either of those because the opening chapters provide some useful background information about the main characters and events to date.

A rather gruesome discovery sets Sebastian Wolff and Sergeant Hans Winter, initially seconded from the Gestapo to keep track of Wolff’s movements but now an ally, on the trail of Red Freedom, a Communist group opposed to the Nazis but just as capable of ruthless acts of violence. As always Wolff’s determination to bring culprits to book brings him up against some old adversaries in the Gestapo, two men who are more interested in arresting someone for the crime even if it’s not the perpetrator. After all, once in their hands for a few hours a person is likely to confess to anything.

Wolff is frustrated to find his investigation brought to a halt and assigned to the security team for the visit to Germany by the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, a visit which will culminate in a meeting at Berghof, Hitler’s alpine retreat near Berchtesgaden. Wolff’s suspicions are aroused by two individuals, one of whom is dismissed as nothing more than a fanatical Royalist. The other? Well, let’s just say Wolff’s detective instincts tell him something’s not right. The proof of that comes when he has a very narrow escape.

The author is particularly good at creating seemingly disparate storylines and then bringing them together in a satisfying way. He does exactly that in this book. There’s also a great melding together of the professional and the personal, the fictional and the factual. For example, Wolff and his partner Hexie are keen to start a family but have met with no success as yet, although not for the want of trying. When they learn of an abandoned child that may be suitable for adoption they get a terrifying insight into a sinister Nazi programme and Hexie also realises her family history may make her a target for something even worse. She also has a chilling up close and personal encounter courtesy of her friendship with former colleague, Eva Braun. Yes, that Eva Braun.

Being set in 1937, we know what’s coming but of course Wolff doesn’t. However he has a growing sense of foreboding. ‘All pretence of open justice, fair play and democratic rule had long since been swept away. In his own life, he was trying to bring killers to court to protect the people of his beloved Germany from the forces of evil. But he knew he was fighting a losing battle.’ He’s even disgusted at himself for some of the things he’s had to do in the course of the investigation.‘ Was he totally lost? Was he becoming one of them?’

His failure to join the Nazi party has already earned him the hostility of his superiors. Only the fact Wolff’s uncle is a man of influence is keeping him in his position, even out of prison or a much worse fate. How much more can Wolff take? Let’s hope there’s another book that will answer that question.

Invitation from a Dictator is a terrific historical thriller with a gripping plot, great period detail and a constant sense of jeopardy. It would be perfect for fans of the late Philip Kerr’s Bernie Gunther novels.

I received an advance reader copy courtesy of Viking via NetGalley. Invitation from a Dictator is book 12 of my 20 Books of Summer 2026.

In three words: Compelling, dramatic, authentic
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 – Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

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About the Book

Book cover of Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

Piranesi’s house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself. He lives to explore the house.

There is one other person in the house — a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known.

Format: Paperback (245 pages) Publisher: Bloomsbury
Publication date: 15th September 2020 Genre: Fantasy, Mystery

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My Review

Piranesi was the book chosen for the October edition of BBC Radio 4’s Bookclub, hosted by broadcaster and author Jim Naughtie. I attended the recording of the programme on 25th September and joined an audience of readers to hear its author Susanna Clarke answer questions about the book. The programme will be transmitted on Sunday 6th October 2024 and is available after that on BBC Sounds (as are all previous episodes of the programme). My review is a combination of my own thoughts about the book and my recollections of the conversation that took place during the recording.

I’ll confess that for the first 80 or so pages of the book I felt completely lost, as if I was in some sort of labyrinth myself. I found myself wondering was Piranesi in an actual building? If so, how did he get there, and why? Perhaps it was all in his head and the House was some sort of analogy for mental illness? I think I was actually trying too hard to make sense of things and when I let myself go with the flow, as it were, I found myself drawn into this strange world the author has created. She admitted her favourite books as a child were C. S. Lewis’s Narnia series and one can see how this would have inspired her conception of the House. Susanna is also an admirer of the works of Jorge Luis Borges. If you’re looking for other intertextual links – as I often find myself doing – than the legend of the Minotaur is certainly one and I also found myself thinking of The Palace of Green Porcelain the Time Traveller discovers in H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine.

Piranesi, which he knows instinctively is not his real name but is the one given to him by the mysterious Other, has a childlike innocence. (The choice of the name Piranesi is no accident. Giovanni Battista Piranesi was an 18th century Italian architect who, amongst other things, produced a series of prints depicting fantastical subterranean prisons.) Where others might find the House forbidding, “our” Piranesi finds it a nurturing entity. It provides him with shelter and food – fish and shellfish – and seaweed which he dries and uses to create all manner of things. He spends his days exploring the various floors and vast halls that make up the House – some of which are derelict – and meticulously recording his findings in journals, his only means of recording the passing of time. Amongst the artefacts in the house are hundreds of statues depicting human figures and animals.

He believes himself to be alone in the House and one of only two living people in the world, the second being the man he knows as the Other. The Other arrives promptly every Tuesday and Thursday in the main vestibule of the House but never ventures any further in. Piranesi looks upon him as a kindly presence because of the useful things he sometimes brings him, such as a pair of shoes or a new supply of multivitamins. I don’t think I’ll be alone in regarding the Other’s intentions as distinctly sinister and manipulative.

Having initially struggled a bit with the fantasy element of the book, surprisingly I found myself regretting when it became more of a mystery as we gradually discover how and why Piranesi came to be in the House. Having said that, in Piranesi the author has created a character you won’t forget, and in the House, the sort of place you might encounter in your dreams.

In three words: Imaginative, fantastical, mysterious
Try something similar: The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow

About the Author

Author Susanna Clarke

Susanna Clarke’s debut novel Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell was first published in more than 34 countries and was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award and the Guardian First Book Award. It won British Book Awards Newcomer of the Year, the Hugo Award and the World Fantasy Award in 2005. 

The Ladies of Grace Adieu, a collection of short stories, some set in the world of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, was published by Bloomsbury in 2006. Piranesi was a New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller, was shortlisted for the Costa Novel of the Year Award and the RSL Encore Award and won the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2021. Susanna Clarke lives in Derbyshire. (Photo: Amazon author page)