Tag Archives: between the wars fiction

#BookReview ‘Munich Wolf’ by Rory Clements #crime #thriller

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A standalone thriller by Rory Clements is to be treasured, though I wonder if Munich Wolf is the first of a new between-the-wars crime series. Munich in June 1935 is the spiritual home of Nazism. The vibrant city is full of young people having a good time. Except pretty girls are being killed. Can maverick police detective Sebastian Wolff find the murderer before another girl dies. Rory ClementsWolff faces an uphill battle in investigating the murder of a young English woman, the Honourable Miss Rosie Palmer, daughter of a lady-in-waiting to Queen Mary, and friend of Adolf Hitler’s supporter Unity Mitford. Politicians fear a diplomatic incident, Hitler wants the murderer to be apprehended immediately, the Bavarian Political Police wants to send Wolff to Dachau, his boss wants a quiet life, and his Hitler Youth enthusiast son thinks he is a traitor to Germany. Sebastian, who believes police work is about apprehending villains regardless of social class, politics, race, gender or wealth, must uphold the law within a political landscape evolving into a dictatorship where people vanish overnight and onlookers feign ignorance.
What is the meaning of strange lipstick marks on the corpse; random scribbles, Hebrew writing or something mythical. When Wolff asks a specialist for help, he complicates the case further. Only his mother, who is constantly trying to feed him, and his girlfriend Hexie, who is something of a rebel, seem to be on his side.
After a slowish-start, this turns into a thrilling read. A complex crime story set at the time of momentous political upheaval. Munich is full of a toxic combination of people. Hitler, his intimates and fanatical supporters; followers of the Völkisch racial ideology; power-hungry aristocrats; brutal thugs, and young upper-class English women happy to party with handsome SS officers in their black uniforms tailored by Hugo Boss. While the in-crowd party to excess – one celebration features endless champagne and naked women writhing in ecstasy as they fight on a lawn for a flag – Jews are being deported and homosexuals terrorised.
The Lancia-driving anti-Nazi Wolff is a likeable hero and defender of the word of the law. He is not perfect; he works too hard, lacks diplomacy and has a short fuse. But he doesn’t respond well to being bullied and continues to investigate when he has been threatened, attacked and locked up.
As a fan of the Tom Wilde, series, I’m happy to find another Rory Clements character to root for.

Click the title to read my reviews of the Tom Wilde thriller series by Rory Clements:-
CORPUS #1TOMWILDE
NUCLEUS #2TOMWILDE
NEMESIS #3TOMWILDE
HITLER’S SECRET #4TOMWILDE
A PRINCE AND A SPY #5TOMWILDE
THE MAN IN THE BUNKER #6TOMWILDE
THE ENGLISH FUHRER #7TOMWILDE
A COLD WIND FROM MOSCOW #8TOMWILDE

If you like this, try:-
‘Eeny Meeny’ by MJ Arlidge #1HelenGrace
‘The Guest List’ by Lucy Foley
‘A Fatal Crossing’ by Tom Hindle

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview MUNICH WOLF by Rory Clements https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-7Qs via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Christina Courtenay

#BookReview ‘The Paying Guests’ by Sarah Waters #historical

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Sarah Waters is one of my favourite authors, I await each new book with delicious anticipation. I waited a while for this one, The Paying Guests was a Christmas present and I started reading it about an hour after unwrapping it. Sarah WatersI wasn’t disappointed. Waters has written a ‘closed room’ mystery with a bit of romance and crime thrown in, all in the post-Great War context of women’s rights, abandoned soldiers and the corset of social manners. Mrs Wray and her daughter Frances have fallen on hard times, in order to pay off debts left after the death of Frances’ father, they rent out the upstairs of their house to lodgers. Except they don’t call Mr and Mrs Barber their lodgers, they are ‘paying guests’. Waters puts these four strangers together and mixes it a little, waiting to see what happens. They bump into each other on the landing, on the stairs, in the kitchen on the way to the outside lavatory, in their dressing gowns, first thing in the morning and last thing at night. They circle around each other according to the parameters of social behaviour. And all the time, Waters turns the screw slowly, tightening, until the buttoned-down feelings break free. Then all hell breaks loose.
I loved this book, the characters are drawn with such care and I could see this divided house as if looking at a photograph.

Read the first paragraph of THE PAYING GUESTS.

If you like this, try:-
‘After the Bombing’ by Clare Morrall
‘Freya’ by Anthony Quinn
‘At Mrs Lippincote’s’ by Elizabeth Taylor

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE PAYING GUESTS by Sarah Waters http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1s3 via @Sandra Danby