Tag: WW2

Blog Tour/Book Review: Night Flight to Paris by David Gilman

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My grateful thanks to Florence at Head of Zeus for inviting me to join the blog tour for David Gilman’s latest book, Night Flight to Paris.  You can read my review below.  Do check out the tour banner at the bottom of this post to see details of the other great book bloggers who have taken part in the tour and shared extracts from the books or guest posts by David Gilman.

NIGHT FLIGHT TO PARISAbout the Book

PARIS, 1943. The swastika flies from the top of the Eiffel Tower. Soldiers clad in field grey patrol the streets. Buildings have been renamed, books banned, art stolen and people disappeared. Amongst the missing is an Allied intelligence cell.

Gone to ground? Betrayed? Dead? Britain’s Special Operations Executive need to find out. They recruit ex-Parisian and Bletchley Park codebreaker Harry Mitchell to return to the city he fled two years ago.

Mitchell knows Occupied Paris – a city at war with itself. Informers, gangsters, collaborators and Resistance factions are as ready to slit each other’s throats as they are the Germans’. The occupiers themselves are no better: the Gestapo and the Abwehr – military intelligence – are locked in their own lethal battle for dominance. Mitchell knows the risks: a return to Paris not a mission – it’s a death sentence.

But he has good reason to put his life on the line: the wife and daughter he was forced to leave behind have fallen into the hands of the Gestapo and Michell will do whatever it takes to save them. But with disaster afflicting his mission from the outset, it will take all his ingenuity, all his courage, to even get into Paris… unaware that every step he takes towards the capital is a step closer to a trap well set and baited.

Format: Hardcover, ebook (496 pp.)    Publisher: Head of Zeus
Published: 9th August 2018            Genre: Historical Fiction, Thriller

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk  ǀ  Amazon.com ǀ Hive.co.uk (supporting UK bookshops)
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find Night Flight to Paris on Goodreads

My Review

An author writing a book set in World War 2 featuring the French Resistance is entering pretty crowded – or should I say occupied (sorry) – territory.  There’s Kristin Hannah’s The Nightingale and Kate Mosse’s Citadel, to name but two.  Thankfully, in David Gilman’s skilful hands, the reader will find plenty that is original and compelling in Night Flight to Paris.

What I particularly admired was the way the author convincingly portrayed the constant state of jeopardy in which those working undercover in occupied France or as part of the Resistance lived on a daily basis and its emotional and psychological impact on them.   Imagine a situation where a word or gesture out of place – even something as simple as the way you order your coffee – can mark you out as a stranger or enemy agent, bringing you to the attention of the authorities.  In addition, a situation where informers are everywhere and it can be difficult  – actually, almost impossible – to know who to trust.  I  loved the detail of the tradecraft necessary to operate undercover, introducing me to concepts such as duress codes.

The cruelty and ruthlessness of the German authorities towards enemy agents and members of the Resistance they capture is graphically displayed.  But, in time of war, as the author shows, there is a degree of ruthlessness required from everyone involved.  Uncomfortable, potentially life-changing decisions and actions need to be taken in which personal feelings may come into conflict with mission objectives.  Mitchell, in particular,  faces this dilemma on numerous occasions.  ‘What if his feelings threatened to get in the way of everything that still needed to be done? He could not afford to lose focus.  Lives depended on him seeing the operation through and being sufficiently detached to make quick decision.’  But how can you remain detached when it’s family members, people you care about or who have come to depend on you who will be affected by the decisions you make?

The author describes the complex, and at times, baffling hierarchies and different political and military groupings that exist within the Resistance and within the French and German authorities in the occupied territories.   As one character explains: ‘There were a lot of people operating in Paris.  Different groups, different political persuasions.  Mix that in with the criminal element and you couldn’t tell who was betraying whom.’ The distrust and rivalry between the different groups, and in some cases the personal rivalry, will play an increasingly important part as the story unfolds.

Night Flight to Paris immerses the reader in a world where danger, suspicion and fear is a constant companion.  It’s populated with characters whose lives the reader comes to care about deeply – and others that one is pleased to see meet a sticky end!   With its rich mixture of atmospheric period detail, dramatic action scenes and compelling story line, Night Flight to Paris is a must-read for fans of historical fiction.

I received a review copy courtesy of publishers, Head of Zeus, in return for an honest and unbiased review.

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In three words: Compelling, dramatic, immersive

Try something similar…Flight Before Dawn by Megan Easley-Walsh (read my review here)

David GilmanAbout the Author

David Gilman enjoyed many careers – including fire-fighter, paratrooper and photographer – before turning to writing full time.

He is an award-winning author and screenwriter, and was shortlisted for the Wilbur Smith Writing Prize 2017.

Connect with David

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Night Flight to Paris Blog Tour

 

Book Review: A Quiet Genocide by Glenn Bryant

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A Quiet Genocide [Amsterdam Publishers] by Glenn Bryant COVERAbout the Book

Germany, 1954. Jozef grows up in a happy household – so it seems. But his father Gerhard still harbours disturbing National Socialism ideals, while mother Catharina is quietly broken. She cannot feign happiness for much longer and rediscovers love elsewhere. Jozef is uncertain and alone. Who is he? Are Gerhard and Catharina his real parents?

A dark mystery gradually unfolds, revealing an inescapable truth the entire nation is afraid to confront. But Jozef is determined to find out about the past and a horror is finally unmasked which continues to question our idea of what, in the last hour, makes each of us human.

A terrifying and heartbreaking story.

Format: ebook (240 pp.)             Publisher: Amsterdam Publishers
Published: 22nd August 2018     Genre: Historical Fiction

Pre-order/Purchase Links*
Publisher | Amazon.co.uk  ǀ  Amazon.com
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find A Quiet Genocide on Goodreads

My Review

The Quiet Genocide contains a wealth of fascinating information about the rise of Hitler and National Socialism that was certainly new to this reader. The author chooses to impart these facts largely through the classes Jozef attends at school and university, so I did feel at times that I was sitting alongside him in a series of history lectures – a case of telling rather than showing.  This contrasted with the sections of moving first-hand testimony, for example from Professor Zielinski, which felt much more vivid and powerful.   I also confess that I found it difficult to identify with the adolescent drinking exploits of Jozef and his university friends that take up some of the book.

Jozef’s experiences at school and university are interspersed with insights into the troubled marriage of his parents, Catharina and Gerhard.   Gerhard finds refuge in drinking sessions, either alone or with his acquaintance Michael, who seems to exercise a strange hold over Gerhard and exudes a general air of malevolence.  Catharina finds refuge from her unhappy marriage in a quite different way; a way that will have unforeseen and tragic consequences.

The subtitle of the book, The Untold Holocaust of Disabled Children in WW2 Germany, means the subject matter of the book is clear to the reader from the start but of course what the reader doesn’t know is how Jozef’s personal history is connected to this terrible atrocity.  I think it’s fair to say that it takes quite a while for the mystery surrounding Jozef’s past to be revealed.  However, as the book draws towards its shocking conclusion and the true nature of the connection is revealed, it provides an explanation for the strained relationship between Jozef’s parents and demonstrates how the malevolent influence and twisted belief systems of Nazism persisted in some quarters even beyond the end of the war.  I found this latter section of the book the most compelling and, for me, it had the pace that was perhaps lacking in earlier parts of the book.

Although I have read a number of books about atrocities committed by the Nazis during World War Two, the shocking nature of those events never seems to lose its impact.  Most shocking of all, I find, is the ruthless efficiency and organisation with which such terrible acts were carried out: paperwork completed, records kept, numbers tallied, targets set.  Books such as A Quiet Genocide perform an important role in ensuring that such atrocities are never forgotten.

I received an advance review copy courtesy of the author in return for an honest and unbiased review.

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In three words: Compelling, factual, chilling

Try something similar…The Good Doctor of Warsaw by Elisabeth Gifford (read my review here)

Glenn Bryant PORTRAITAbout the Author

Glenn Bryant was born in 1976 and grew up in Grimsby, the north of England. He has a Masters degree from the University of Dundee, Scotland in modern history where he studied in detail the Warsaw Ghetto 1940-43. He trained in newspaper journalism and is a qualified and experienced senior journalist.

His wife champions disability rights and is experienced working closely with people with complex disabilities.

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