One of the great privileges of pursuing a writing career is that when you stumble upon a stray thread of information that intrigues you are able, nay even encouraged, to tug at it, follow its twists and turns and see where it might lead. It was a mention of the ‘Cone of Power’ ritual in 1940 that set me off researching The Grand Illusion, the first novel in my new WW2 series which explores how the British Secret Service exploited the Nazis’ fascination with the occult. It is equally true of my new book, The Great Deception, which is set against one of the most curious episodes of the Second World War: the British invasion of Iceland.
The what? was my reaction when I first came across it, imagining some kind of Anglo-Saxon or Viking encounter. But no - the invasion took place on the 10th of May 1940.
I was astonished that I hadn’t heard about it before. It was, after all, Britain’s last outright military invasion and occupation of a neutral country. But readers familiar with the Second World War will know that on that morning Germany launched its western offensive, invading Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and France in a lightning strike that would soon bring Western Europe to its knees. By the end of the day, Neville Chamberlain was out, Winston Churchill was in, and those seismic events eclipsed everything else. The British seizure of Iceland became little more than a footnote, buried beneath the enormity of the continental crisis.
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| Iceland |
But in Iceland itself, of course it changed everything. In fact it’s still a source of controversy and debate today. And it was to this extraordinary island that I journeyed, determined to tug further at the thread.
I was fortunate in two respects. First, I secured two residencies at Gunnarshús, the Writers’ Union of Iceland, staying in a light-filled apartment overlooking Reykjavík, itself a UNESCO City of Literature. Second, I had the good fortune to draw on the formidable mind of Quentin Bates, a British writer, journalist, and translator who has lived in Iceland for years and who furnished me with lots of advice on where to go and what to see. Soon I found myself immersed in the archives.
At the National and University Library of Iceland I hunted down a PhD thesis that had been mentioned in an academic article. Written by Donald Francis Bittner for the University of Missouri, it proved to be one of the most detailed accounts of the invasion available. Operation Fork, as it was known, turned out to be a remarkably bloodless invasion. The only shot fired was, tragically, self-inflicted by a terrified young marine. The British had hoped for surprise, but their reconnaissance Walrus seaplane gave the game away: the unusual sound sent Icelanders flocking to the harbour to watch two destroyers, one cruiser, 40 officers, 746 Royal Marines, a small intelligence detachment, and a diplomatic mission sail into view.
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| Hotel Borg |
It must also rank as one of the politest invasions in history. At 6.20 a.m., as marines disembarked, the British consul asked a Reykjavík police officer to move the gathering crowd back a little. ‘Of course, sir,’ came the calm reply. A momentary kerfuffle followed when an Icelander grabbed a marine’s rifle and stuffed a cigarette down the barrel, but then did nothing but hand it back. That was the day’s most dramatic incident. Later that morning Prime Minister Hermann Jónasson protested ‘vigorously’ to the British ambassador. The rest of the government spent the evening with him and his colleagues at Reykjavík’s Hotel Borg, enjoying the good Scotch which the ambassador had brought over with him.
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| An Icelandic grimoire |
The Great Deception, though set against the invasion, follows Daphne Devine as she investigates a clairvoyant and hunts for a magical book - a grimoire - hidden in the remote Strandir region, ‘land of sorcerers’. Of course, I had to travel there myself.
In Hólmavík I visited the Icelandic Museum of Witchcraft and Sorcery. It is a place of marvels and horrors, not least the infamous Necropants, fashioned from human skin. (For the record: they would not let me try them on, no matter how earnestly I pleaded ‘research.’)
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| Magnús Rafnsson & Syd Moore |
It was there I met Magnús Rafnsson, one of Iceland’s foremost authorities on grimoires. Having completed ‘sheep-gathering weekend - sacred seasonal ritual in itself - he sat with me for hours. Our conversations ranged from the nature of Icelandic magic to the strange divergences between the witch hunts in his homeland and those of my own Essex. He not only answered every question but unfolded the layered history of Hólmavík with generosity and insight.
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| The Necropants |
This is, I think, the reward I hold most dear: the moments when research ceases to be solitary and becomes instead a meeting of minds, an unexpected fellowship. It is these conversations, these unlocked doors, that nourish the imagination and breathe life into fiction.
And so The Great Deception was born: from invasion and occupation, from sagas and sorcery, from the tug of a thread that led me north, to Reykjavík’s archives and Strandir’s wild coast.
The Great Deception by Syd Moore is published by Magpie on 4 September, paperback £9.99.
1940. Britain has invaded neutral Iceland, but Daphne Devine has bigger problems. She has sailed into allied territory to track down a clairvoyant suspected of collaborating with the Nazis. As an undercover operative, Daphne must thread her way through a land steeped in shadow and riddled with secrets. But when a new lead pulls her North into Strandir, land of sorcerers, what she uncovers sets off a deadly chain reaction. The stakes are raised, and suddenly it’s not just her life on the line, but the fate of her entire team. In a world of deceiving occultists and age-old magic, Daphne must use every ounce of cunning and craft at her disposal to outwit enemy agents if she wants to emerge unscathed and get her team out alive.
More information about Syd Moore and her books can be found on her website. She can also be found on Instagram and Facebook @sydmoorewriter and on X @SydMoore1
© All Photos Syd Moore
