WRITEALOT: Blitz

Showing posts with label Blitz. Show all posts

Tuesday, 7 March 2023

BLACK OUT - Book review

John Lawton’s highly accomplished debut novel was published in 1995, the first of eight detective Troy books. It's a mix of crime in the main plus espionage elements. Sergeant Frederick Troy doesn't like any form of his given name, preferring to be addressed by his surname. He is the younger son of a Russian immigrant father who has become a wealthy newspaper publisher and baronet. Defying class and family expectations, the independently wealthy Troy joins Scotland Yard, becoming an investigator on the ‘murder squad’.

The book begins at the height of the London Blitz, February 1944, when a dog is spotted carrying the severed arm of a man. Before long, Troy is assigned to find out who's murdering German scientists who've been secretly smuggled out of Germany and into Britain. There seems to be a conspiracy of silence regarding the murders and the upper echelons of the American forces. The newly formed OSS is involved, it appears. The convoluted investigation has its compensations for Troy, however, in the erotic form of not one but two femmes fatales – socialite Diana Brock and US Army sergeant Tosca.

The story skips to 1948, when Troy tracks a suspect to Berlin during the Blockade, which provides a fine twist.

Throughout, the characters are well defined and interesting, from the Inspector Onions, to the Polish pathologist Kolakiewicz, the dissolute MI5 man, Pym, the voluptuous Diana and the amusingly voluble and voracious Tosca, to Troy himself. The sense of time and place are expertly evoked.

There is wit and sly humour as well as a little graphic sex. For example, an amusing scene where Troy’s Uncle Nikolai, who works at Imperial College, has a dud bomb stowed in his lab. ‘It fell in Islington churchyard last night. Believe me, it’s as safe as houses.’ That particular metaphor did nothing to reassure Troy. So many houses in Islingon these days were nothing more than rubble and dust’ (p78).

‘Pym was running rapidly to seed and looked as though he meant to enjoy every moment and ounce of it. Somewhere in his attic was a portrait that was forever young’ (p93).

And we have suspense, also: ‘She smiled and took the page from him, and he knew as certain as eggs were powdered that there was someone hiding in the next room’ (p113).

A pleasure to read.

The second Troy book, Old Flames, takes place in 1956 during Khrushchev’s visit to UK. Subsequent books skip about in time, some before the events in Black Out.

Saturday, 29 December 2018

A Dance to the Music of Time (8 of 12)

Anthony Powell’s eighth book in his sequence is The Soldier’s Art and was published in 1968.

It begins in 1941 with our narrator Nick Jenkins buying an army greatcoat in the neighbourhood of Shaftesbury Avenue, ‘where, as well as officers’ kit and outfits for sport, they hire or sell theatrical costume’. (p5) As ever, Powell provides an excellent scene setting for a humorous interlude where the tailor’s assistant, ‘bent, elderly, bearded, with the congruous demeanour of a Levantine trader’ is convinced he has seen Nick acting on stage, and can’t be swayed from this, ending with ‘I’ll wish you a good run.’ (p7)

England is in the midst of the blitz. ‘Announced by the melancholy dirge of sirens, like ritual wailings at barbarous obsequies, the German planes used to arrive shortly before midnight…’ (p9) and these air-raids are significant, notably towards the end of the book. The targeted populace could only hope and pray the raids were not too long – ‘… the hope that the Luftwaffe, bearing in mind the duration of their return journey, would not protract with too much Teutonic conscientiousness the night’s activities.’ (p10).

Besides pricking the pomposity of individuals, Powell puts in his sights the Treasury: ‘… the cluster of highly educated apes ultimately in charge of such matters at the Treasury.’ (p20)

Again, we’re introduced to several new characters. Cocksidge: ‘… the imaginative lengths to which he would carry obsequiousness to superiors displayed something of genius. He took a keen delight in running errands for anyone a couple of ranks above himself, his subservience even to majors showing the essence of humility.’ (p39) Soper, the Division Catering Officer, who stared at a piece of rejected meat on Biggs’s plate: ‘… to implyu censure of too free and easy table manners, or, in official capacity as DCO, professionally assessing the nutritive value of that particular cube of fat – and its waste – in wartime.’ (p71)

And we meet people from the earlier books, too. Nick is working for Widmerpool now, who has not improved in his manner: ‘We are not in the army to have fun, Nicholas.’ (p72)

Then there’s Chips Lovell who meets up with Nick: ‘I hope there’ll be something to drink tonight. The wine outlook becomes increasingly desperate since France went.’ (p115) How will we ever cope after Brexit…?

Another person from earlier is Mrs Maclintick, who is now sharing a house with Moreland; ‘What lax morals people have these days,’ Moreland says (p216). ‘Small, wiry, aggressive, she looked as ready as ever for a row, her bright black eyes and unsmiling countenance confronting a world from which perpetual hostility was not merely potential, but presumptive.’ (p118)

Charles Stringham turns up in the army, too, having become tea-total, and is quite happy to be an ‘other rank’, the officers’ mess waiter. He makes a telling statement, too: ‘How severe you always are to human weakness, Nick.’

Some characters we’ve known die – victims of the war. The scenes where Nick appears at the aftermath of a bombing are touching though Powell inevitably steers clear of sentimentality and any emotion.

Throughout, and as evinced by the above examples, Powell has a good turn of phrase. ‘I began to tell my story. He cut me short at once, seeming already aware what was coming, another tribute to the General’s powers of transmuting thought into action.’ (p89) And ‘The comparative enthusiasm Farebrother managed to infuse into this comment was something of a masterpiece in the exercise of dissimulation.’ (p194)

We’re barely aware of what is happening in the war, apart from an occasional line such as ‘military action in Syria’ and ‘the Germans attacked in Crete’ (p168) And Germany invades Russia (p219) bringing some kind of hope…

The book’s title comes from Robert Browning’s Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came: ‘Think first, fight afterwards – the soldier’s art;’ (p214)

Eight books down, four to go. We, the reader, shall soldier on!

Next: 9 – The Military Philosophers.

Thursday, 26 October 2017

Book review - The Interrogator

Andrew Williams’ debut novel The Interrogator (2009) boldly tackles a tense period in the Second World War (or as we now must refer to it, WWII). Thanks to the predatory U-boats, Britain is suffering heavy losses from the Atlantic convoys. Lieutenant Douglas Lindsay, a survivor from a torpedoed ship, is working in London with the Admiralty Operational Intelligence Centre, The Citadel. They track U-boats, thanks to Bletchley cracking the Enigma codes. Even so, the attrition rate is devastating…

While interrogating captured German sailors and officers, Lindsay latches onto the idea that the Royal and Merchant Navy codes have been cracked by Donitz’ codebreakers. But, typically, Admiralty representatives are in denial and require proof. Lindsay, becoming obsessed with his theory, jeopardises not only his new love Mary, but also the lives of prisoners in a cat-and-mouse attempt at unearthing the truth.

Williams evokes the tense atmosphere in the Admiralty Tracking Room, and in a U-boat under attack from depth charges, and in a torpedoed warship.

Inevitably, moral ambiguity raises its head; what can be justified for ‘the greater good’? Yes, but it’s war.

The images of London in the Blitz are well done, and the characterisation of Lindsay, Mary and the German prisoners hold the reader’s attention. As a bonus, there’s Mary’s friend from Eton, Ian Fleming, who is pulling a few strings – and slowly smoking himself to death.

It’s obvious that a great deal of research has gone into the novel; fortunately, there are no info-dumps and the fascinating material emerges as part of the story.

If you enjoy period pieces about WWII, then you should find this a satisfying read.