Why Write About What You Know? Researching The Mystery of Yew Tree House

I envisaged this as a homage to the Christie/Ngaio Marsh Golden Age, yet with a modern twist. The Mystery of Yew Tree House is set in a dual time frame of 1940 during WWII and the present day. Obviously, I know a bit about now, but to enter the spirit of the forties in wartime Britain – and then to take readers there - required research. 

The story was inspired by the many ‘pillboxes’ dotted around the Sussex countryside, where I live. Red-brick structures, square, hexagonal or octagonal, they were built by the coast in the South East and inland at key routes and waterways to defend against a Nazi invasion. Pill boxes were used by the Home Guard – not the jolly bunch of incompetents portrayed in Dad’s Army - but a serious and skilled men with day jobs who had to huddle in these pillboxes every night. 

While out with my dog I see many pill boxes. As is often the case, once my attention is caught by a location, in Kew Gardens, the Thames Towpath, I imagine a body there. What if that body was a skeleton dating back to the war? 

One joy of writing fiction is research. While an image - say a pillbox – might be a starting point, for me, research is as much an exploration of a subject that’s aroused my curiosity, as about giving ‘reality’ to my fiction. 

That adage of ‘write about what you know’ works better as, ‘what I don’t know, I’ll find out then I’ll write about it.’ This has led me out of my study into the world of other people’s chosen paths. I’ve ridden in the cab of a London Underground train listening to the driver describe his work. Exploring behind the scenes of a police station gaining a sense of what it was like to police London in the nineteen-eighties. I’ve interviewed botanists and visited ‘The Artist’s Room’ at Kew gardens to see a botanical illustrator at work. For The Playground Murders, at the Museum of Childhood, I ferreted through yellowing papers describing playground safety in the nineteen-seventies. and eighties. A child of the sixties, I was aghast at ways I could have been injured or worse in my local playground. When I wrote The Companion, I remained in my study to read about psychopaths. I did venture into the cellars at Sheffield Park House where I pondered on where that body might go. Who says writing is a lonely business?

For The Mystery of Yew Tree House, my research involved books on the Home Front, women’s diaries and newspaper archives. But as ever, I tramped the novel’s location . For fictional purposes, Bishopstone and Lindfield became one village. 

Delving into the Home Guard I discovered Churchill’s Secret Army. Men – and women – supposedly in the Home Guard, who were actually in an Auxiliary Unit. Trained at a secret location, this guerilla force – called Stay-Behinds –was armed with fearsome a Fairbairn-Sykes dagger with which to ambush a victim and cut his throat. Butcher and bolt. Stay-behinds were in reserved occupations or too young for the forces An ideal recruit knew the terrain, every ditch, every culvert, so could move at night with ease and speed. A blacksmith and farm labourers with practical skills, even poachers. Especially poachers, those used to committed crimes and playing dirty. 

I found my neighbour’s father’s name listed in a Sussex Auxiliary Unit. My neighbour had an inkling his dad – a farmworker had not actually been in the Home Guard. Once, his father had pointed towards a field near the farm on where he had worked and remarked, ‘that’s where we were holed up’. That was all. He would have been referring to his unit’s Observational Base, an underground bunker which not even locals knew about. My neighbour said his dad was ‘a gentle giant’, who hated pain or suffering. What had his father made of ‘butcher and bolt’? The Auxiliers were told they had a fortnight before they would be killed. 

After the war, cut loose without pensions or praise and, having signed the Official Secrets Act unable to say what they had done in the war. There were medals, but you had to pay for them.

An undercurrent of secrecy and violence lies beneath my ‘cosy’ picture of a village at war. My modern twist on the Golden Age is that nothing is what it seems…

The Mystery of Yew Tree House by Lesley Thomson (Head of Zeus) £20.00 Out Now

Eighty years of secrets. A body that reveals them all. 1940. At Yew Tree House, recently widowed Adelaide Stride is raising her two daughters alone - but it's not just the threat of German invasion that keeps her up at night. She is surrounded by enemies posing as allies and, while war rages, she grows sure that something terrible is about to happen. 2023. Soon after Stella Darnell begins her holiday at Yew Tree House, a skeleton is found in a pillbox at the bottom of the garden. The bullet hole in the skull tells her that the person was murdered. This triggers the unravelling of a mystery eighty years in the making. Soon, Stella will learn that Adelaide was right to worry - the fighting might have been happening abroad, but the true enemy was always much closer to home...

More information about Lesley and her work can be found on her website. You can also find her on X @LesleyjmThomson and on Facebook and on Instagram @lesleythomson.

Books to Look Forward to From Head of Zeus

 

January 2022

Was it an accident or assassination? When the former head of Israeli intelligence is killed on a paragliding trip, it's the latest in a series of 'accidental' deaths befalling key members of the American and Israeli governments. Mossad bring in terrorist hunters Aaron and Shoshana to investigate - and they know just who to call. Taskforce operator Pike Logan has been out of action for too long, so he jumps at the chance to take on the mission. An Iranian-funded militia group, operating in Iraq, has recently claimed responsibility for the deaths. But something doesn't add up, and Logan is determined to uncover the truth. He'll have to wade deep into the complex religious and political currents of the Israeli-Palestinian region, and it's up to the Taskforce to determine who is pulling the strings. What they find could have disastrous consequences not only for the Middle East, but for the entire world...End of Days is by Brad Taylor.

Disappearance of a Scribe is by Dana Stabenow. Cleopatra - seventh of her name, avatar of the goddess Isis, ruler of the Kingdom of Egypt - watches over her city. The war is over, but Alexandria, that once great beacon of learning and commerce, has suffered in its wake. Caesar has returned to Rome, and the queen must restore her city and her kingdom to their former greatness. But now a body has been found floating upright at the bottom of the sea, anchored in place by a cement weight around its feet. It's the second corpse to be found this way in two years, and the queen is concerned. With a city to rebuild and a kingdom to keep in line, Cleopatra cannot allow any more murders to interfere. So she sets Tetisheri - her Eye, her closest confidant and personal investigator - to make things right. As she delves deeper into the mystery, Tetisheri will discover secrets, conspiracy and danger far beyond her ken...

The Runaway is by Nick Petrie. When Peter Ash rescues a stranded woman, he finds she's in far deeper trouble than he bargained for... Peter Ash came home from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with only one souvenir: crippling claustrophobia due to PTSD. After years of living rough, he's trying hard to get back to a normal life - one where people aren't trying to kill him. And then he meets Helene, a young pregnant woman stranded on a remote Nebraska road. With no other rescuers in sight, Peter offers her a ride. But Helene's angry ex-cop husband is hot on her trail. It seems Helene has seen something she was never meant to see, and for Peter, protecting her will mean putting both their lives on the line..

February 2022

Betrayal is by David Gilman. Someone's going to start a war. And Raglan's just walked into the kill zone. It has been many years since Dan Raglan served in the French Foreign Legion, but the bonds forged in adversity are unbreakable and when one of his comrades calls for help, Raglan is duty-bound to answer. An ex-legionnaire, now an intelligence officer at the Pentagon, disappears. He leaves only this message: should he ever go missing, contact Raglan. But Raglan's not the only one looking for the missing man. From the backstreets of Marseilles, Raglan finds himself following a trail of death that will lead him to Florida, to the camaraderie of a Vietnam vet in Washington D.C., and into the heart of a bitter battle in the upper echelons of the US intelligence community. Pursued by both the CIA and a rogue female FBI agent, Raglan's search will place him in the cross hairs of an altogether more lethal organisation. Tracking his old comrade, he finds himself in the midst of deadly conspiracy, and on a journey to a fatal confrontation deep in the Honduran rainforest.

Sentinel Mesa is by Preston and Child. Forced to leave her post at the Santa Fe Archaeological Institute, Nora Kelly is left without a job and without any prospects. So when billionaire Lucas Tappan invites her to lead his excavation of the infamous Roswell landing site, she has no choice but to make a decision that could destroy her reputation. Armed with a healthy dose of scepticism, Nora reluctantly agrees to visit the site. When the preliminary scans of the area reveal a suspected Native American burial site, Nora takes a closer look. But this is no indigenous burial site. It's a crime scene, and a recent one at that. Nora uncovers two dead bodies, one with a bullet hole in its skull. Dead bodies mean this has become a case for the FBI, and Nora knows just the person to investigate - Special Agent Corrie Swanson. As Corrie and Nora dig deeper into the mystery, they will uncover more questions than answers. And the truth they seek will be even stranger than the conspiracy it hides behind.

The Last Commandment is by Scott Shepherd. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt keep the Sabbath day holy. Thou shalt not kill. Christmastime in London: a period of joy and togetherness. Not for Metropolitan Police Commander Austin Grant, though. Three dead bodies have turned up on his patch, and the only thing they have in common is a number carved into their foreheads. A professor of ancient mythology, a sculptor of curious idols, frontman of The Blasphemers. It seems the killer is meting out their own justice, Biblically, punishing those who transgress the Ten Commandments. With seven commandments left, Grant sets the Met's best detectives to the case, scouring the capital before the zealot can strike again. But soon enough, a fourth victim turns up. In New York City. It appears Grant has a transatlantic manhunt on his hands. He's going to need all the help he can get from the NYPD if he's to stop the killer - before he reaches the last commandment.

A daredevil British agent goes behind enemy lines to search for a religious text that might hold the key to ending the Second World War. Basil St. Florian is an accomplished agent in the British Army, tasked with dozens of dangerous missions for crown and country across the globe. But his current mission, going undercover in Nazi-occupied France during World War II, might be his toughest assignment yet. He will be searching for an ecclesiastic manuscript that doesn't officially exist, one that genius professor Alan Turing believes may hold the key to a code that could prevent the death of millions and possibly even end the war. St. Florian isn't the classic British special agent with a stiff upper lip - he is a swashbuckling, whisky-drinking cynic and thrill-seeker who resents having to leave Vivien Leigh's bed to set out on his crucial mission. Despite these proclivities, though, Basil's Army superiors know he's the best man for the job, carrying out his espionage with enough charm and quick wit to make any of his subjects lower their guards. Basil's War is by Stephen Hunter.

One Bad Thing is by M K Hill. She thought she'd got away with it. She was wrong. Hannah Godley is an agony aunt on a London radio show Queen of Hearts. She's warm and empathetic; a good listener. Her catchphrase is: Be kind, always. But when a stranger phones in to tell a tragic story about her brother who killed himself after he was the victim of a terrible prank by two people, Hannah goes cold. Because she remembers Diane's brother well. In fact, all these years later, he still haunts her dreams. All because of that one bad thing she did when she was young... Is Diane just a sad, lonely woman looking for a friend, or does she know what Hannah did, and is looking for revenge? Because as Diane insinuates herself into her life and family, Hannah is going to discover that you can never truly escape that One Bad Thing you did - sooner or later, you're going to have to pay the price...

March 2022

Introducing your new crime thriller fix: Bristol detective DS George Cross, champion of the outsider, the voiceless and the dispossessed. DS George Cross can be rude, difficult, and awkward with people. But his unfailing logic and dogged pursuit of the truth means his conviction rate is the best on the force. An outsider himself, having been diagnosed with Autism spectrum disorder, DS Cross is especially drawn to cases concerning the voiceless and the dispossessed. Now, Cross is untangling the truth about a young woman who died three days ago. With no fingerprints, no weapon and no witnesses, the Bristol Crime Unit are ready to close the case. The coroner rules suicide: the woman had a long history of drug abuse. But her mother is convinced it was murder: her daughter has been clean and sober for over two years. DS Cross is determined to defy his bosses and re-open the case, even if it costs him his career. Soon he is mired in a labyrinth of potential suspects - but can he solve the case before his superiors shut it down for good? The Patient is by Tim Sullivan.

The Night Shift is by Alex Finlay. It's New Year's Eve of 1999 when four teenagers working late are attacked at a Blockbuster video store in New Jersey. Only one inexplicably survives. Police quickly identify a suspect, the boyfriend of one of the victims, who flees and is never seen again. Fifteen years later, four more teenagers are attacked at an ice cream store in the same town, and again only one makes it out alive. In the aftermath of the latest crime, three lives intersect: the lone survivor of the Blockbuster massacre who is forced to relive the horrors of her tragedy; the brother of the fugitive accused, who is convinced the police have the wrong suspect; and FBI agent Sarah Keller, who must delve into the secrets of both nights to uncover the truth about the night shift murders.

April  2022

The Fall is by Rachael Blok. The wind is cold this high up. The man shouts out, but nobody hears. The cathedral roof has caught his fall, but it will not hold him for long. The night is dark. And it is such a long way down... On Good Friday, the verger of St Albans cathedral was supposed to be preparing the Easter service. Instead he discovers a man lying dead, fallen from the famous fifty-foot-high spire. Did he jump, or was he pushed? For DCI Maarten Jansen, it's a simple case of suspected suicide. Until a stranger, Willow, who witnessed the jump, prompts a deeper investigation into a long-buried past, involving a mental hospital, a pregnant woman, and fifty years of silence. As Willow's own family history entwines with the case, Jansen starts to wonder how everything is connected.

May 2022

Sally Robinson was obsessed with family tradition. That's why, on a scorching August day, she dragged her family out for a picnic on Dedman's Heath. Sally imagined her picturesque children posing against the purple heathers and flowering yellow gorse of the South Downs: an envy-inducing post for her facebook page. Instead, the perfect mother and her perfect family were murdered. By a man who had murdered before, and will do so again. DI Toni Kemp, of Sussex police, must unravel a case which has shocked the county to its core. What she discovers will lead her to Bedford Hall, a grand country mansion, long ago converted into flats. Here in the middle of nowhere, where statues dot the lawn and peacocks scream in the bushes, six long-term residents have seen more than they should. But this is a community who are good at keeping secrets... The Companion is by Lesley Thomson.

June 2022

Katastrophe is by Graham Hurley. January, 1945. Wherever you look on the map, the Thousand Year Reich is shrinking. Even Goebbels has run out of lies to sweeten the reckoning to come. An Allied victory is inevitable, but who will reap the spoils of war? Two years ago, Werner Nehmann's war came to an abrupt end in Stalingrad. With the city in ruins, the remains of General Paulus' Sixth Army surrendered to the Soviets and Nehmann was shipped to Russia's arctic gulags. But now he's riding on the back of one of Marshal Zhukov's T-35 tanks, heading home with a message for the man who consigned him to the Stalingrad Cauldron. With the Red Army about to fall on Berlin, Stalin fears his sometime allies are conspiring to deny him his prize. He needs to speak to Goebbels - and who better to broker the contact than Werner Nehmann, Goebbels' one-time confidante? Swapping the ruins of Stalingrad for the wreckage of Berlin, swapping Joseph Goebbels for Joseph Stalin, Nehmann's war has taken a turn for the worse. The Germans have a word for it.

A missing girl. Buried family secrets. An absent father. Is the truth worth searching for? Summer, 1993. In the aftermath of her mother's suicide attempt, 16-year-old Prue must spend the summer holidays on a remote island in the Shetlands with her favourite Aunt Ruth and Uncle Archie, a man she's barely met since her aunt married him. Prue hopes to re-establish the relationship, and that her aunt might help her understand some of the parts of the past she has been forbidden to discuss by her mother - including the identity of her father. Prue soon finds out that her uncle was the only suspect in the disappearance of a local girl some twenty years ago. As she grows closer to him, she learns there are differing views on how the beguiling Evelyn O'Hara disappeared, but is her uncle innocent? Truth is something Prue has always had a fractured relationship with. A single version of the truth seems impossible for her to lockdown.. The Gone and the Forgotten is by Clare Whitfield.

Books to Look Forward to From Head of Zeus

January 2021 

The Scorpion's Tail is by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. After a shoot-out leaves a senior FBI agent gravely wounded, Corrie Swanson finds herself under investigation. Her supervisor assures her she's not to blame and the black mark on her record will be cleared in short order. But Corrie finds she cannot shake off an overwhelming feeling of guilt. As a distraction, she takes on a new case involving a fifty-year-old, mummified corpse discovered in a hidden enclave at High Lonesome, a long-abandoned New Mexico ghost town. Quickly out of her depth, she realizes she needs the help of her old enemy, archaeologist Nora Kelly. The two women soon uncover a startling truth: the deceased was poisoned, and died clutching a priceless artifact. Can the two women solve the mystery of the scorpion's tail? Or will they - like others before them - die in the attempt?

Anyone can be a traitor. FBI Agent Peter Sutherland waits in the White House Situation Room. He monitors an emergency line for calls that might never come... Then the phone rings. A terrified young woman says two people have been murdered and the killer might still be in the house with her. One of the victims gave her this phone number with urgent instructions: 'Tell them OSPREY was right. It's happening...' The call thrusts Peter into the heart of a conspiracy years in the making. There's a Russian mole in the U.S. Government and Peter must uncover who it is. The nation's at stake and innocent lives are in his hands. The Night Agent is by Matthew Quirk.

The Pact is by Dawn Goodwin. I'll kill yours, if you kill mine. Maddie's life has come crashing down around her. Her husband has left her and moved on with a new woman and baby. No longer can she run from the past that's been haunting her. The past has destroyed her future. In a new flat, trying to start a new life, Maddie meets Jade and her young son, Ben. All too swiftly Maddie finds the dark thoughts whirring through her brain. But Jade's different, she loves Ben, doesn't she? As the two women begin to open up about their exes over a few glasses of wine, Jade conjures a plan, a pact. She'll kill Maddie's if Maddie kills hers. Laughing it off, Maddie returns to her normal life. But what if it wasn't a joke at all...

Can you defeat an enemy you can't fight? The Taskforce - a highly classified Special Forces unit - finds an ex-member in serious trouble. Clifford Delmonty was working at an Australian F 35 facility when he saw something he shouldn't have. Now he's on the run from Chinese agents. Yet Delmonty's attackers are a dangerous part of a bigger scheme. China plans to bait Taiwan into all-out war by destabilizing their government and manipulating Taiwan's artificial intelligence defence system. As the threat of conflict reaches boiling point, Pike Logan, top Taskforce operator and ex-soldier, realises that what is being seen is not what is happening. With the help of a Taiwanese intelligence agent, he races to prevent a catastrophic conflict from consuming a whole region of the world - and the lives of his teammates. American Traitor is by Brad Taylor. 

February 2021

Falcon Bay was the world's most popular soap opera, filmed on location on a tiny, idyllic island off Jersey. But with ratings falling, a new network owner, the beautiful and malevolent Madeline Kane, arrives on the private island determined to do whatever it takes to get the show back to number one.Writer Farrah, star Catherine and producer Amanda are the driven, ambitious women who keep the show on the road. But Farrah is losing episodes to the network's lead male writer, Catherine is terrified of the public falling out of love with her and Amanda's evil husband Jake, vice president of the network, is plotting to get his wife kicked off the show. In a true battle of the sexes, these women will do anything to stay on top. But can they team up to bring down their rivals? Or will jealousy and revenge tear their friendship apart? As their story reaches its shocking climax, one thing is certain: only the most ruthless woman will survive... Ruthless Women is by Melanie Blake.

Accident is by Dawn Goodwin. Veronica Pullman's comfortable suburban life comes to a shuddering halt when her young daughter, Grace, tragically dies in a car accident. Months later, unable to come to terms with her daughter's death, detached from her husband and alienated from her friends and family, a chance encounter on a rainy street pushes her into an unlikely new friendship. Scarlet is everything Veronica could've been: feisty, adventurous, unpredictable. But as she approaches what would have been Grace's 10th birthday, it becomes clear to Veronica that the friendship she thought was saving her life could be costing her everything. Consumed by grief and left questioning her own sanity, is there anyone she can really trust or is someone out to torment her as part of their twisted game.

Spoils of the Dead is by Dana Stabenow. It's Labor Day in Blewestown, Alaska, and it seems most of the town's thirty-five hundred residents have turned out to celebrate - or to cause trouble. Not Liam Campbell, though. He's checking out the local watering hole in his new town. He's finally made it out of Newenham and is ready for a quiet life with his wife.He's been in town for about a week when an archaeologist invites him out to his dig site outside of town. He's on the verge of a momentous discovery, one he says will be worth the State Trooper's time. Two days later, the archaeologist is dead, murdered on his own dig site. And Liam Campbell is about to learn that he's traded one troubled bush town for another.

Operation Treadstone made Jason Bourne, but he's not the only agent they trained. After the revival of Operation Treadstone, former operative Adam Hayes has retreated to Africa, determined to escape the black-ops CIA program for good. Hayes knows just how destructive the program can be, as it turns government agents into nearly superhuman assassins. But his quiet life in Africa changes irrevocably, when Hayes is attacked by extremists while flying a charitable mission in Burkina Faso. Forced to make an emergency landing, his plane is damaged and he is left in a hornet's nest of trouble. In order to get back in the air, Hayes agrees to transport a passenger - Zoe Cabot, the daughter of a tech baron - to a small coastal city. But on arrival, Zoe is abducted. Searching for the missing girl, Hayes runs afoul of multiple enemies, including a rogue Treadstone operative, all of whom are searching for him - and for the information about a wire transfer of millions of dollars bound for the relief effort in Burkina Faso. Hayes must outrun and outgun the factions that are hunting him, and prevent the theft of the much-needed millions from one of Africa's poorest nations. Robert Ludlum's™The Treadstone Exile is by Joshua Hood.

March 2021

The Woman in the Wood is by M K Hill. Three years ago, Danny 'Abs' Cruikshank, star of reality show Laid in Essex!, was living the dream. And then, on the night of the party, everything changed. It was supposed to be an intimate weekend gathering. Just a few close friends in a remote cottage in Wales. But after a night of heavy drinking in the village pub, a local girl was reported missing, presumed dead. Abs and his friends had been the last to see her alive. No-one was ever charged, but the controversy destroyed Abs's career. So now, three years later, the celebrity who once captured the heart of millions is opening Southend's new branch of Quidstore. And then one of Abs's mates is murdered. Does someone know what really happened that night in Wales? DI Sasha Dawson and her team must race against the clock to find the killer before they strike again - but first she must discover what happened to Rhiannon Jenkins on the night she vanished. Will the truth set Abs free? Or bury him?

I Am Vengeance is by Mason Cross.. Vengeance is in my heart. Murder in my mind. With the help of Special Agent Marcus Williams, notorious murderer Francis Ackerman Jr. works on a twenty-year old cold case connected to a string of abductions surrounding the Navajo Nation. Their investigation leads them deep into the largest American Indian reservation in the US, where a drug gang has established its own kingdom. When one of his team goes missing, Ackerman has no choice but to declare war...

Dark Sky is by C J Box. The governor of Wyoming has given game warden Joe Pickett the thankless assignment of taking a tech baron on a hunting trip. But unbeknownst to them, as they trek further into the wilderness, a hunter is hot on their heels. Joe must rely on his wits and his knowledge of the outdoors to protect himself and his charge. Meanwhile, when Joe's closest friend Nate Romanowski and his own daughter Sheridan learn of the threat to his life, they follow him into the woods to rescue him, and all three come together for one final showdown.

The Long Dark Road is by P R Black. The governor of Wyoming has given game warden Joe Pickett the thankless assignment of taking a tech baron on a hunting trip. But unbeknownst to them, as they trek further into the wilderness, a hunter is hot on their heels. Joe must rely on his wits and his knowledge of the outdoors to protect himself and his charge. Meanwhile, when Joe's closest friend Nate Romanowski and his own daughter Sheridan learn of the threat to his life, they follow him into the woods to rescue him, and all three come together for one final showdown.

April 2021

Jack Taylor has finally traded in his violent life in Galway for a quiet retirement in the country. But on a day trip back into the city, Jack is hit by a truck and left in a coma, mysteriously without a scratch on him. When he awakens weeks later, he finds Ireland in a frenzy over the so-called 'Miracle of Galway'. People have become convinced that the two children who tended to him are saintly, and the site of the accident sacred. The Catholic Church isn't so sure, and Jack is commissioned to help find the children to verify the miracle or expose the stunt. But Jack isn't the only one looking for these children, and he'll need all the help he can get - and a stiff drink of Jameson - once he finds them. A Galway Epiphany is by Ken Bruen.

If you go into the woods, you're in for a dark surprise. Thirty years ago, three girls followed a stranger into the woods. Only two returned. The surviving pair have never been able to remember what happened or what the fate of the third girl was. Local rumours talk of hippies and drugs and mystic rituals, but no one has learned the truth. This story is just what Rowan Blake needs. He's in debt, his journalistic career is in tatters - as well as his damaged body - and he's retreated to the Lake District to write. Yet even Rowan isn't prepared for the evil he is about to unearth, for the secrets that have been buried in that wood for far too long... Into The Woods is by David Mark.

Kiss Me, Kill Me is by Louise Mullins. I practise my shock-horror face in the mirror for the seventh time. 'My husband, he's . . . dead.' Bethan Phillips has only one thing on her mind: killing her rich and elderly husband for his fortune. But after several thwarted attempts, it is a horrific accident while holidaying together in Snowdonia that takes Humphrey down. Now she must pretend he's alive, continuing social gatherings alone under the guise he is undertaking business abroad. Because someone witnessed her leaving Humphrey to die, and should the police investigate his death they'll discover the series of 'accidents' he's survived in the previous few days... and it won't take them long to connect the dots. There are many reasons Bethan would rather the police didn't look too closely at her. Or the life she lived before becoming Bethan Philips. Unfortunately for her, DI Emma Locke is on the case.

May 2021

Seat 7a is by Sebastien Fitzek. Psychiatrist Mats Kruger knows that his irrational fear of flying is just that - irrational. He knows that flying is nineteen times safer than driving. He also knows that if something does happen on a plane, the worst place to be is seat 7A. That's why on his first plane journey in 20 years - to be with his only daughter as she gives birth - he's booked seat 7A, so no one else can sit there. If no one is sat there, surely nothing will go wrong. But shortly after take-off, Mats receives a worrying phone call. The caller has kidnapped his daughter and will murder her - and her unborn child - unless Mats convinces the pilot to crash the plane, killing everyone on board.. As the plane nears its destination, Mats must make an impossible choice and face the fact he might be the arbiter of his own worst fear.

London, 1940. A woman lies dead in a bombed-out house. It looks like she's another tragic casualty of the Blitz, until police pathologist Aleck Northcote proves she was strangled and placed at the scene. But Northcote himself has something to hide. And when his past catches up with him, he too is murdered. Tewkesbury, 2020. Beneath the vast stone arches of Tewkesbury Abbey, a man has been fatally stabbed. He is Roddy March, an investigative journalist for a podcast series uncovering miscarriages of justice. He was looking into the murder of police pathologist Dr Aleck Northcote - and was certain he had uncovered Northcote's real killer. Stella Darnell used to run a detective agency alongside her cleaning business. She's moved to Tewkesbury to escape from death, not to court it - but Roddy died in her arms and, Stella is someone impelled to root out evil when she finds it. Now she is determined to hunt down Roddy's killer - but then she finds another body... The Distant Dead is by Lesley Thomson.

Face of Evil is by George Morris De'Ath. If you play games with a killer... you can't afford to lose. Looking for a subject for her book about evil, Lydia Tune travels to the infamous Mortem Asylum in Richmond, Virginia. Her target is Jason Devere, a death row serial killer notorious for his precise and grotesque murders. Lydia is beautiful, ruthless and manipulative - she always gets what she wants. She knows the only way to get Jason to speak is to engage him in a dangerous battle of wits. Local detective and old friend Alex Gilbey warns her off the case, but he has no idea just how far Lydia will go to court darkness. The more Lydia digs into Jason's story, the clearer it becomes that there is a bigger story to uncover. But the problem with playing with killers is that they never play nice...

June 2021

The Cover Wife is by Dan Fesperman. Paris, October 1999. CIA agent Claire Saylor is looking after low-level surveillance ops. Her career has stalled after a misguided dalliance with her handler Paul Bridger - so when Bridger asks Claire to join a team, she prepares herself for a stint on tea duties. But in fact, he's finally put her back in the game. She'll be going undercover as the wife of Professor Winston Armitage - an expert in the Quran and its translations. He's presenting his controversial new theory on the fabled promise of 72 virgins for each martyr, and needs protection. But when Claire arrives in Hamburg, it soon becomes clear that this is no routine protection job: she's there to uncover a conspiracy that will lead to the 9/11 terror attacks. And if she blows her cover, she could lose her life...

It's now or never for Gemma, will she finally be able to step away from a life of crime? Mob boss Alfie has new rivals in town - and they might be more than a match for the Essex gangster. Between defending his turf, appeasing his crime lord father and holding onto the woman of his dreams, Alfie knows that something's got to give... Nathan's recovering from his coma and trying to come to terms with his wife's bombshell secret - that her son Luca was fathered by Alfie. Unconvinced of Gemma's loyalty, he turns to his estranged ex-con father for help... Gemma will do anything to give her son a normal life - and she's surprised to find she has unexpected allies. But when the moment of truth arrives, can she trust Nathan to protect her and Luca? Forgive and Forget is by Stephanie Harte.

The Taken Girl is by Glenn Cooper. They were taken. They returned. They never aged. A family is abducted. There are no signs of a struggle. Their Italian holiday villa is untouched. There are no ransom demands. The parents and two little girls, Victoria and Elizabeth, have simply vanished. The daughters are returned. Four years later, the girls appear back at the family's holiday home. But they are the exact same ages they were at the time of their abduction. Their parents are still nowhere to be seen. Only one man can solve the mystery. Marcus Handler, a retired CIA officer, is hired to investigate. He wants Victoria and Elizabeth's disappearance explained. But his hunt for answers leads Marcus to a disturbing truth and a reckoning with his own troubled past...

Hour of the Assassin is by Matthew Quirk. Think like a killer. Act like a hero. His job is to protect them. As a secret service agent, Nick Averose spent a decade guarding the most powerful people in the US. Now, he's a mock killer, testing the security around the highest officials to find vulnerabilities, before America's enemies can. But now someone's out to get him. Nick's latest assignment leads him to the home of a former CIA director. But when he breaches the director's study, Nick is entangled in a vicious crime. One that will shake Washington to its foundations. He's the perfect scapegoat. Nick needs to find out who is framing him for the crime and why. If he can't uncover the truth, a dark conspiracy will consume him and everyone else within the Oval Office...

July 2021

Kyiv is by Graham Hurley. On Sunday 22nd June, 1941, at 03.05, three and a half million Axis troops burst into the Soviet Union along a 1,800 mile front to launch Operation Barbarossa. The southern thrust of the attack was aimed at the Caucuses and the oil fields beyond. Kyiv was the biggest city to stand in their way. Within six weeks, the city was under siege. Surrounded by Panzers, bombed and shelled day and night, Soviet Commissar Nikita Krushchev was amongst the senior Soviet officials co-ordinating the defence. Amid his cadre of trusted personnel is British defector Bella Menzies, once with MI5, now with the NKVD. With the fall of the city inevitable, the Soviets plan a bloody war of terror that will extort a higher toll on the city's inhabitants than the invaders. As the noose tightens, Bella finds herself trapped, hunted by both the Russians and the Germans.

Amber is by Heather Burnside. Nobody to call. With a mother unfit for purpose and a brother who despises her, working girl Amber can rely on no one but herself - until the meanest pimp in Manchester, Kevin Pike, offers her his protection. Unfortunately, this attracts the fury of Cora, a prostitute no one wants to get on the wrong side of... Nowhere to hide. When Cora is found strangled to death, the late-night city streets feel increasingly exposed with a killer on the loose. And as Amber grows closer to Kevin, she realises his security comes at a price she might not be willing to pay... Nothing to lose. Amber is frozen in fear, knowing one wrong move will risk her life. But then she discovers a horrifying secret that forces her to choose: stay or run?

After thwarting the violent international fascist syndicate known as Nemesis, Evan Ryder returns to Washington, D.C., only to find her secret division of the Department of Defense shut down and her deceased sister's children missing. Now the target of a cabal of American billionaires who were among Nemesis's supporters, Evan and her former boss, Ben Butler, must learn to work together as partners - and navigate their intricate past - as they hunt down her family's kidnappers. Their search will take them from Istanbul to Odessa to an ancient church deep within the Carpathian Mountains of Romania. And all along the way, an unimaginable enemy stalks in the shadows, an adversary whose secretive past will upend Evan's entire world, and might just annihilate her. The Kobalt Dossier is by Eric Van Lustbader.

The Guest House is by David Mark. How much would you pay to survive? Mum-of-three Ronni Ashcroft had just pieced her life back together after her husband left. On a remote spur of the Scottish Highlands, she kept her successful guest house going and even met a new man, Bishop. But it turned out that Bishop had secrets. He had shady connections and shadier plans to use the coastal town as a European gateway for drugs, guns - and something far worse. Now he's disappeared, and Ronnie wants answers. Is he in trouble or simply ignoring her? Was she just his play-thing from the start? And, most importantly, is he dragging them both into something that neither of them will survive?

You are her therapist. Kristina is a successful therapist in central Oslo. She spends her days helping clients navigate their lives with a cool professionalism that has got her to the top. She is your client. But when her client Leah arrives at her office clearly distressed, begging Kristina to come to her remote cabin in the woods, she feels the balance she's worked hard to achieve begin to slip. But out here in the woods When Leah fails to turn up to her next two sessions, Kristina reluctantly heads out into the wilderness to find her. Nothing is as it seems. Alone and isolated, surrounded by snow and trees, Kristina soon realises what a huge mistake she has made... Cabin Fever is by Alex Dahl.

The Runner is by P R Black. You can't escape him. He abducts lone joggers and forces them to run for their lives. When he catches them, he pulls out his blade...Now he's locked away and will be in prison for years. They call him a psychopath, a murderer, the 'Woodcutter Killer'. But what if you just found out you're supposed to call him father?

August 2021

Farewell to the Liar is by D K Fields. There's power in stories. But power can be deadly.Detective Cora Gorderheim is a detective no longer. Stripped of her badge by the corrupt chief inspector, Cora's job now is to protect her sister, Ruth, the new Wayward storyteller. Ruth must tell her tale of the Tear widening if people are to know the truth of what's happening in the Union of Realms. But Lowlander Chambers Morton wants the Wayward to change their election story, and will stop at nothing to achieve this - including murder. Keeping Ruth alive in Fenest is hard enough, but when the sisters set sail for West Perlanse the dangers come thick and fast. And slowly Cora realises she must make a terrible choice: her sister's life, or the future of the Union.

The Soul Breaker destroys women. He doesn't kill them, or mutilate them. But he leaves them completely dead inside, paralysed and catatonic. His only trace a note left in their hands. There are three known victims when suddenly the abductions stop. The Soul Breaker has tired of his game, it seems. Meanwhile, a man has been found in the snow outside an exclusive psychiatric clinic. He has no recollection of who he is, or why he is there. Unable to match him to any of the police's missing people, the nurses call him Casper. Casper makes little progress regaining his memory, but he grows restless and wants to leave the clinic to piece together the few clues to his life. But the weather has taken a turn for the worse, and the clinic becomes completely cut off to the world outside. No one is able to reach the clinic, and its staff and patients cannot leave. So when the head psychiatrist is found trembling, naked and distraught, with a slip of paper clasped in her hands, it seems somehow the Soul Breaker has returned... The Soul Breaker is by Sebastian Fitzek.

September 2021

It's not who you know, it's what you know about them . . . Among Washington D.C. power players, everyone has something to hide, including Sean Serrat, a Supreme Court lawyer. Sean transformed his misspent youth into a model adulthood, and now has one of the most respected legal careers in the country. But just as he learns he's on the short list to be nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court, his daughter, Abby, a talented and dedicated law student, goes missing. When Abby's lifeless body is discovered shoved into a shelf at the Supreme Court Library, Sean is wracked with grief. Does her murder have anything to do with the secret he's been keeping for years? He follows the footsteps of his daughter's last days and stumbles over secrets within his own family - as well as the lies of some of the most powerful people in the country. People who will stop at nothing to prevent Sean from exposing the truth . .. The Advocate's Daughter is by Anthony Franze.

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Books to Look Forward to from Head of Zeus.

January 2020

The Other You is by J S Monroe.  Is he who you think he is? Kate used to be good at recognising people. So good, she worked for the police, identifying criminals in crowds of thousands. But six months ago, a devastating car accident led to a brain injury. Now the woman who never forgot a face can barely recognise herself in the mirror. At least she has Rob. Kate met him just after her accident, and he nursed her back to health, in his high-tech, modernist house on the Cornish coast. When she's with him, the nightmares of the accident fade, and she feels safe and loved. Until, one day, Kate looks at Rob anew. And knows, with absolute certainty, that the man before her has been replaced by an impostor. Is she right? Have her old recognition skills returned? Or is it all in her damaged mind?

... though there is no fixed line between wrong and right,  There are roughly zones whose laws must be obeyed. It is New Year's Eve, nearly six weeks into an off-and-on blizzard that has locked Alaska down, effectively cutting it off from the outside world. But now there are reports of a plane down in the Quilak mountains. With the National Transportation Safety Board unable to reach the crash site, ex-Trooper Jim Chopin is pulled out of retirement to try to identify the aircraft, collect the corpses, and determine why no flight has been reported missing. But Jim discovers survivors: two children who don't speak a word of English.  Meanwhile, PI Kate Shugak receives an unexpected  and unwelcome accusation from beyond the grave, a charge that could change the face of the Park forever.  No Fixed Line is by Dana Stabenow.  

House on Fire is by Joseph Finder.  Nick Heller, private spy, exposes secrets that powerful people would rather keep hidden. At the funeral of his good friend Sean, an army buddy who struggled with opioid addiction, a stranger approaches Nick with a job. The woman is a member of the Kimball family, whose immense fortune was built on opiates. Now she wants to become a whistleblower, exposing evidence that Kimball Pharmaceutical knew its biggest money-maker was dangerously addictive. Nick agrees instantly - but he soon realizes the sins of the Kimball patriarch are just the beginning. Beneath the surface are the barely concealed cabals and conspiracies: a twisting story of family intrigue and lethal corporate machinations.

I am the Night is by Ethan Cross.  Marcus Williams and Francis Ackerman Jr. are both killers. But while Williams is tortured by the deaths he has caused, Ackerman takes pleasure in his murders. Williams is a former New York City homicide detective. Ackerman is a serial killer. And both men are about to become unwilling pawns in a conspiracy that reaches to the highest levels of US government. They will be plunged deep into a hellish underworld of murderers and killers. They will find that there is more that connects them than divides them... and that their lives depend on it.

February 2020.

Sean Tennant and Molly Winter are living quietly and cautiously in Houston when a troubled, obsessive stranger shatters the safety they have carefully constructed for themselves. Sean is at a shopping mall when Henry Alan Keen, scorned by a woman he's been dating, pulls out a gun at the store where she works and begins shooting everyone in sight. A former soldier, Sean rushes toward Keen and ends the slaughter with two well-placed shots - becoming a hero with his face plastered across the news. But Sean's newfound notoriety exposes him to the wrath of two men he thought he had left safely in his past. One of them blames Sean for his brother's death. The other wants to recover a treasure that Sean and Molly stole from him. Both men are deadly and relentless enemies, and Sean and Molly will need to draw on all their strength and devotion to each other if they hope to elude them. Thus begins a cross-country chase that leads from Texas to Montana, from Tennessee to New York to Michigan, as the hunters and their prey grow ever closer and, in a heart-stopping moment, converge.  The Good Killer is by Harry Dolan.

The Last Drop of Blood is by Graham Masterton.  It started with the judge. He was about to sentence five of Cork's most notorious criminals. But his body has just turned up, beaten and broken, on an isolated road in his burned-out car. Now four members of a rival gang have been shot, and in retaliation three civilians have been blown up. To Katie's horror, Cork is becoming a gang battleground like Dublin. Can Katie save the city? Can she save herself?

Robert Ludlum's ™ The Treadstone Resurrection is by Joshua Hood.   Operation Treadstone has nearly ruined Adam Hayes. The top-secret CIA Black Ops program trained him to be a nearly invincible assassin, but it also cost him his family and any chance at a normal life. Which is why he was determined to get out. Working as a cabinet-maker in rural Oregon, Adam thinks he has left Treadstone in the past, until he receives a mysterious email from a former colleague, and soon after is attacked by an unknown hit team at his job site. Adam must regain the skills that Treadstone taught him - lightning reflexes and a cold conscience - in order to discover who the would-be killers are, and why they have come after him now. Are his pursuers enemies from a long-ago mission? Rival intelligence agents? Or, perhaps, someone inside Treadstone? His search will unearth secrets in the highest levels of government and pull him back into the shadowy world he worked so hard to forget.

Nga-Yee, a librarian, lives a quiet life with her fifteen-year-old sister Siu-Man. After a difficult, impoverished upbringing and the deaths of their parents, they are finally finding a bit of stability. Then one day, Nga-Yee comes home to find her teenage sister has jumped to her death. Was it suicide, or was she pushed? And does it have anything to do with a recent trip on the Hong Kong subway which left Siu-Man silent and withdrawn? Nga-Yee cannot rest until she knows the truth about her sister - even if that means tracking down her sister's friends one by one and making them confess. Part detective novel, part revenge thriller, Second Sister is by Chan Ho-Kei and explores themes of sexual harassment, internet bullying and teenage suicide - and vividly captures the zeitgeist of Hong Kong today.

March 2020

New Year's Eve, London. Outside the Hope & Glory pub, a man has been left to die. A victim of extraordinary violence, he will never walk or speak again. He remains in hospital, nameless, until criminal defence lawyer Sarah Kellerman walks onto his ward.  Sarah barely recognises the man she once worked with - he was honourable and kind - what was he involved in? Who wanted him dead? But in her race to uncover the truth, Sarah comes to realise there are two men in her life that she never really knew at all...  From one of crime fiction's most compelling voices, One Dark, Two Light is by Ruth Mancini and is where the personal and criminal collide, as Sarah works to bring dark secrets into the light.

The wife of a prominent local judge is shot and killed on Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett's turf. But as Joe investigates, all signs point to the shot having been taken from an impossibly long distance. Joe has seen a lot in his time as warden, but he's never seen a killing like this. How could the shooting have been arranged? And who else is in the cross hairs? At the same time - just as he's adjusting to the arrival of a new baby, his first child - Joe's best friend Nate Romanowski is attempting to decipher a startling grizzly attack in the area. Beset by threats both man-made and natural, the two men must go to great lengths to figure out how to keep their loved ones safe.  Long Range is by C J Box.  

The Message is by Mai Jia.  China, 1941.  While war rages in Europe, Japan has established itself as the supreme power in Asia. The beautiful province of Hangzhou has become a stronghold of the Japanese puppet government. One day, five officers from the code-breaking department are escorted to an isolated mansion outside the city. One of them has been sharing secrets with the communists. No-one is leaving until the traitor is uncovered. It should be a straightforward case of sifting truth from lies. But as each code-breaker spins a story that proves their innocence, events are re-framed, and what really happened is called into question again and again. Part revisionist history, part playful meta-fiction, The Message is at once an absorbing and cerebral spy thriller. 

Crooked River is by Preston & Child.  Before he can return to New York from Miami, Special Agent A.X.L. Pendergast is called to investigate something very strange that has happened on the west coast of Florida. Dozens of human feet, identically clad in blue have washed up on beaches. All exhibit unmistakeable signs of violence. Beyond that, nothing is known about the feet, except that they are fresh and haven't been in the water long. Pendergast reluctantly makes his way to the barrier islands off South Florida to investigate a case he believes to be outside his area of expertise and his interest. Once there, he finds the case both disturbing and intriguing, and is drawn into the mystery almost against his will. A preliminary pathology report indicates the feet were chopped, torn, or even wrenched from their bodies in the crudest of ways. Over the next few days, still more continue to wash in, until the number tops one hundred. Soon the case begins to take a most surprising and complex turn, and Pendergast finds it necessary to call in Special Agent Armstrong Coldmoon for a risky and very specific undercover assignment. And when, at last, the true origin of this awful gift from the sea becomes clear, the former partners are forced to confront an enemy, and a horror, more powerful and deadly than any they have faced before.

April 2020

Mortmain Hall is by Martin Edwards.  1930. A chilling encounter on London's Necropolis Railway leads to murder. At the Old Bailey, a man accused of a 'blazing car' killing escapes the gallows after a surprise witness gives sensational evidence. And journalist Jacob Flint finds himself framed for murder.To save himself, Jacob needs to discover what links these strange events to a remote estate on a northern coast, Mortmain Hall. At Mortmain Hall, an eccentric female criminologist hosts a gathering of people who have narrowly escaped the consequences of miscarriages of justice. But the house party culminates in tragedy when a body is found beneath the crumbling cliffs.  Is the death an accident or the result of an ingenious plot to get away with murder? An eclectic mix of suspects and victims includes a radical publisher risen from the grave, a fake medium with a sinister past, and a cricketer mauled to death by an escaped lion. Jacob sets out to uncover the labyrinthine secrets of Mortmain Hall, alongside a woman whose relentless quest for the truth might just bring down the British establishment...Who can we turn to, if justice betrays us?

Old enemies... Francis Ackerman Jr. is one of America's most prolific serial killers. Having kept a low profile for the past year, he is ready to return to work - and he's more brutal, cunning, and dangerous than ever. New threats... Scarred from their past battles, Special Agent Marcus Williams cannot shake Ackerman from his mind. But now Marcus must focus on catching the Anarchist, a new killer who drugs and kidnaps women before burning them alive. Hidden terrors... Marcus knows the Anarchist will strike again soon. And Ackerman is still free. But worse than this is a mysterious figure, unknown to the authorities, who controls the actions of the Anarchist and many like him. He is the Prophet - and his plans are more terrible than even his own disciples can imagine. I am Fear is by Ethan Cross.

Tobias Hawke was the tech genius boss of the British Institute for Deep Learning. Now his body has been found in his lab: he has been brutally murdered. Hawke was on the brink of an astonishing breakthrough in the field of Artificial Intelligence. His creation, 'Syd', a machine-learning device that mimics human thought, promised to change the face of humanity forever. But, in the wake of her creator's murder, Syd has gone into emergency shutdown procedure. What secrets are her neural networks hiding? Michael North, ex-assassin and spy-for-hire, is the man to find out. But he can't work alone. Teenage hacker Fangfang, and Hawke's widow, a prize-winning ethicist, have their own reasons to solve the murder. But can they uncover the truth before it's too late?  Curse the Day is by Judith O’Reilly.

May 2020

Freddy left her childhood home in Newhaven twenty-two years ago and swore never to return. But now her parents are dead, and she's back in her hometown to help her brothers manage the family fishmonger. Nothing here has changed: the stink of fish coming up from the marshes; the shopping trolleys half-buried by muddy tides; the neighbours sniffing for a new piece of gossip. It's not what Freddy would have chosen, but at least while she's here she'll get to see her childhood best friends, Toni and Mags. At school, the three of them were inseparable. The teachers called them the Mermaids for their obsession with the sea, and with each other. Then Mags goes missing, and Freddy must decide. Go back home to her new life, or stay in Newhaven and find her friend?  Death of a Mermaid is by Lesley Thomson

X Ways to Die is by Stefan Ahnhem.  X Ways to Die continues the tense, multi-stranded story which begun with Motive X. It is at once an explosive, high-voltage thriller and a fearless exploration of the darkest side of human nature. To enter Stefan Ahnhem's world, with its interwoven plotlines and sprawling cast of characters, is to put yourself in the hands of a master storyteller.

 

In Fate: Death Notice 2 by Zhou Haohui a terrifying killer crowd-sourced his victims online.  Playing a deadly but ingenious game of cat and mouse with his pursuers.  That killer only known by his online handlers as Eumendies, murder civilians and police with impunity.  Now Sergeant Zheng Haoming of the Chengdu Police Department is determined to hunt him down and avenge his colleagues.

June 2020

All of Us is by A F Carter.  It’s not enough that Carolyn Grand endured a horrific childhood that sent her father to jail for thirty years. It’s not enough that she was given to a foster family who pushed her over the edge. It’s not enough that five Carolyn Grands are forced to share a single body. It’s not enough that she spent years in two psychiatric hospitals, was fed psychotropic drugs that left her little more than a zombie. It’s not enough that all five Carolyns struggle every day to remain independent, to pay the rent, to put dinner on the table. It’s not enough that the unreformed and unrepentant father who destroyed Carolyn’s childhood, newly released from prison, has once again thrust himself into her life. Carolyn Grand now has to defend herself against a charge of murder. 

1914: Sixteen-year-old Etterly, running from something, hides inside the trunk of a tree and disappears. The police search but find no trace. Her family and friends wrack their brains, but come up with nothing. And so slowly life returns to normal. The hole in the tree is boarded up and the village of Sackwater moves on. Only Etterly's best friend, Betty, clings to hope, insisting she can hear her friend calling for help. 1940: A skeleton is discovered buried in the woods. Though most clues have long since decayed, it is wearing the necklace Etterly had on the day she went missing. Long haunted by her friend's fate, Detective Betty Church is determined to solve the case once and for all.  The Ghost Tree is by M R C Kasasian.

Blood of the Wolf is by Graham Hurley.  Berlin, 1942.  For four years, the men in field grey have helped themselves to country after country across Western Europe. For Werner Nehmann, a journalist at the Promi - the Ministry of Propaganda - this dizzying series of victories has felt like a party without end. But now the Reich's attention has turned towards the East, and as winter sets in, the mood is turning. Werner's boss, Joseph Goebbels, can sense it. A small man with a powerful voice and coal-black eyes, Goebbels has a deep understanding the dark arts of manipulation. His words, his newsreels, have shaken Germany awake, propelling it towards its greater destiny and he won't let - he can't let - morale falter now. But the Minister of Propaganda is uneasy and in his discomfort has pulled Werner into his close confidence. And here, amid the power struggle between the Nazi Chieftains, Werner will make his mistake and begin his descent into the hell of Stalingrad...