Tag: Espionage

Posted in Squad Pod Collective

Appointment In Paris by Jane Thynne 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.

1938. Stella Fry is walking home from her job at the film institute and surprised to find a crowd gathered near her home. It’s clear there’s been an accident, but when Stella enquires she’s shocked at the reply. ‘It’s someone called Stella Fry’ a woman whispers and with great presence of mind she doesn’t identify herself. She simply turns and walks away, thinking that Harry Fox is involved. After a night on the sofa at her friend’s flat she’s deciding what to do next when she’s called in for an assignment with Harry Fox, who she’s worked with before. This is a very sensitive case, looking into the death of a man at the POW camp at Trent Park. A man wearing Luftwaffe uniform was found dead in the grounds with a gunshot wound. It’s vital to know what’s happened because Trent Park isn’t just a POW camp, it’s a huge intelligence gathering centre and one of their listeners has gone missing. Stella is enrolled in the ATS to become a ‘listener’ at Trent Park. She will join other German speakers, listening to cellmates through state of the art microphones. The women are recording and transcribing anything of interest and sending it up the chain. It’s an important tool to learn about Nazi positions, their plans to invade Western Europe and their treatment of Jewish communities. However, Stella must also listen to her colleagues, because they have no idea where the murder weapon came from and there is a possibility that the missing operative has been turned. There’s also intelligence about three German spies living within the immigrant community close by. Harry will be on the trail of the spies which brings Lieselotte Edelman into his path, a beautiful young Jewish woman who fled her own country before war broke out. Could she be a spy and could Harry’s desire for her cloud his judgement about her true purpose? 

This is an interesting thriller based on true events and the second to feature Harry and Stella as a team, although this time they’ll be working different lines of enquiry on the same case. Stella comes across as the ideal operative, she blends in well and seems to secure people’s confidences very easily. She’s competent and able to keep secrets, even from those closest to her. As for her own feelings, they’re a little more complicated. She has feelings for her best friend’s brother but he’s become engaged to an American he met through the Kennedy family. Harry also has complex feelings. I wondered how he felt about Stella, but would he ever be able to admit to it? He seems to enjoy his bachelor lifestyle and never gets caught up with one woman. Both take comfort from people they meet in the course of their investigation, but these are war time affairs belonging to people who pass in the night never to be seen again. 

I found the psychological dynamics at Trent Park really interesting. The POWs are treated very well, but that’s designed to lull them into a false sense of security. If they’re treated well and have some freedoms they’ll never imagine that their every word is being scrutinised. One man observes that Stella’s job reminds him of the Nietzsche quote that’s the book’s preface – when we look into the abyss the abyss also looks into us. It’s easy to think their inmates are just ordinary men forced into fighting for their country and some are, but others are sadists and enjoy exerting their power over civilians. The stories of beatings, rapes, casual slaughter and the mistreatment of Jews is horrifying. It shows how people’s basest instincts are woken up and distorted by power. Listening to this everyday must chip away at the transcribers as they process these horrors from German into English. I was utterly drawn into this because it’s a very heightened version of working with in the mental health sector, listening to the worst things that have happened to people takes its toll and it’s vital to take breaks and even extended leave in order to do the job well. I wondered how people coped with the roles they were forced to take during the war and whether we would be equally selfless. My grandad missed the war but did his National Service in Germany in the aftermath and I know what he saw affected him. I can’t imagine how a country heals after such horrific events. Those ordinary people who turned on their Jewish neighbours must suffer from terrible guilt when the full truth emerges, whether they believed the propaganda or participated to save their own skin. I was sure that the truth lay somewhere in this sea of human suffering and I was sure Stella would find it. 

I found Stella’s narrative more compelling than Harry’s, possibly because the historical detail and background were so brilliant. Harry js delving into the criminal underworld on the trail of a gun as well as the spies but Stella’s narrative takes us to Paris as the Nazis are on the verge of invading and taking control. The author really captures the sense of fear and disbelief combined, there’s a sense of unreality as if it could never happen to them. It’s something I feel personally with the rise in far-right politics. We always think it couldn’t happen again or it couldn’t happen here, but it can. It’s very tense as Stella gets closer to the man she needs to bring in, but also make sure she gets out of Paris in time. Another feeling the author captured beautifully was the nostalgia for a time before the war, for Stella it’s a party she attended at Trent Park as she is falling in love with her friend’s brother. Since then they’ve both had roles to fulfil and perhaps sacrificed happiness for duty, it’s the story of many people who missed their chance or passed only briefly, never to see each other again. When Harry and Stella are together they’re a formidable team and there is just a tiny hint of chemistry. This was a great historical mystery and I’m very curious to know where this team go next. 

Meet the Author

Jayne has a passion for historical fiction and loves the research that involves. The first in her Clara Vine series, Black Roses, became a number One Kindle Bestseller. In the UK the series is published by Simon & Schuster. Outside Britain, my novels have been translated into French, German, Greek, Russian, Polish, Romanian, Turkish and Italian. In France the series is published by J.C Lattes and in Greece by Kedros. In the US and Canada the series is published by Random House. The TV rights have been optioned by Hillbilly Films who are producing the pilot for an eight part series.

The Words I Never Wrote is published in the US by Ballantine and in the UK by Sharpe Books.

I have also written two alternative history novels under the pen name C.J. Carey, Widowland and Queen High (published in the US by Sourcebooks as The American Queen). I chose that pseudonym because it’s a reversal of my own initials, coupled with my mother’s maiden name. In the UK, the novels are published by Quercus and in France by J C Lattès.

My most recent novels, the Fox and Fry series, feature Harry Fox, a suspended MI5 surveillance operative, and Stella Fry, a former tutor, who are thrown together to solve mysterious murders on the eve of WW2. Midnight in Vienna and Appointment in Paris are both published by Quercus.

As well as writing books I freelance as a journalist, writing regularly for numerous British magazines and newspapers, and also appear as a broadcaster on Radio 4 and Sky. I have been a guest reader at the Arvon Foundation and sat on the broadcasting committee of the Society of Authors. I’m a patron of the Wimbledon Bookfest and live in London.

Posted in Random Things Tours

Our American Friend by Anna Pitoniak

Posted on by thelotusreaders

A mysterious First Lady. The intrepid journalist writing her biography. And the secret that could destroy them both. Tired of covering the grating dysfunction of Washington and the increasingly outrageous antics of President Henry Caine, White House correspondent Sofie Morse quits her job and plans to leave politics behind. But when she gets a call from the office of First Lady Lara Caine, inviting her to come in for a private meeting with Lara, Sofie’s curiosity is piqued. Sofie, like the rest of the world, knows little about Lara – only that she was born in Soviet Russia, raised in Paris, and worked as a model before moving to America and marrying the notoriously brash future president. When Lara asks Sofie to write her official biography, and to finally fill in the gaps of her history, Sofie’s curiosity gets the better of her. She begins to spend more and more time in the White House, slowly developing a bond with Lara. As Lara’s story unfolds, Sofie can’t help but wonder why Lara is rehashing such sensitive information.Why tell Sofie? And why now? Suddenly, Sofie is in the middle of a game of cat and mouse that could have explosive ramifications.

I read a very odd tagline to a review for this book that likened it to Emily in Paris and the TV series Scandal – the comparison to either is inaccurate, because while this has the addictive quality of a thriller it goes much deeper and is clearly well-researched. The blurb immediately took me to Donald Trump and his rather enigmatic First Lady, Melania. A very different First Lady from her predecessor Michelle Obama, she certainly didn’t fit the usual mould and curiosity about their relationship and her past is certainly perfect material for a good thriller. I’m not the first to wonder whether they met at the notorious parties in NYC where very young models were supplied to meet wealthy and powerful men. The potted biography of our character Lara Caine certainly seemed to echo Melania’s journey towards becoming the President’s wife, so this hooked me straight away.

The author sets her characters within the current political climate, the era of fake news, conspiracy and what seems like a complete lack of accountability. I’m not alone in wondering who to believe any more and constantly searching for the truth beneath the headlines. The author certainly conjures up this complicated present and what it’s like to be a journalist within this maze of misinformation, but she also weaves in the fascinating Cold War era, a time absolutely ripe with complicated plots and conspiracies. It’s a clever combination, because when we think back to America and the Cold War we think of the containment of Russia, the Berlin Wall, the arms and space race between the US and USSR, and the Cuban Missile Crisis. At this time even a hint of collaboration between East and West rising to the surface, was investigated robustly and punishments were harsh. McCarthyism was the epitome of the type of paranoia on display as actors and other people working in Hollywood were interrogated and their movements restricted if any socialist or communist sympathies were found. In this country the Profumo affair brought to light a sexual scandal where our Secretary of State for war was having an extra-marital affair with 19 year old model Christine Keeler, who was also sleeping with a Russian naval attaché. Again the root of the problem was secret parties held by osteopath Stephen Ward, where he introduced young models that he knew to powerful men in politics and possibly in the Royal Family too, as portrayed in the series The Crown. This book contrasts these two moments in history as we travel back and forth in time to uncover Lara’s story. It seems that where there were once barriers, there are now complex financial and political relationships between old enemies. Russian financing seems to be behind many Western political campaigns including our own Brexit referendum. Is this simply business or have our old enemies found a more creative way to destabilise the West? I find these complicated collaborations fascinating, so this was fertile ground for a very enjoyable novel as we moved through Paris, Moscow, Washington and New York.

Anna Pitoniak uses the character and background of Lara to explore these contrasting time periods in politics. She could have been a cipher, but she’s more than that and is definitely intriguing from the start. Why would the First Lady approach a journalist who is retiring from politics and whose own political leanings are at odds with the President? Why is she choosing to share her life now, especially when there are so many secrets and who is her reader? Is she perhaps getting ahead of a narrative she knows will come out anyway, creating a chance to influence the story and perhaps gain sympathy from the reader. Sofie has to wonder whether she’s been chosen because the First Lady has had a change in outlook or because her choice of a liberal journalist will influence readers into thinking the book is a fair account, more balanced than if she’d chosen a right wing author. All of these questions were running through my head while reading, as if there aren’t enough on the page. I was full of suspicion, but Lara seems open and welcoming, giving Sofie access to her life. Slowly a relationship builds between these two very different women, potentially a friendship. There is trust but does it really work both ways? Lara gives Sofie previously hidden stories from her childhood and adolescence with access to close family members as a back up. Yet I understand Sofie’s confusion, as she starts to like this woman but remains opposed to everything about Lara’s husband – his politics, morality and the way he’s conducted himself in office. So when Lara discloses a huge secret, something serious enough to upset not just her family but global politics too, she may as well have handed Sofie a ticking time bomb. It’s a journalist’s dream to have such a scoop, but there’s a certain amount of trepidation too. This is a slow burn of a novel, but it is engaging and once you’re hooked you’ll want to see what happens. There are some twist and turns to keep the reader entertained, but the author always keeps it intelligent and historically factual underneath, especially in the Cold War sections. While I didn’t form an attachment to either character I did enjoy the story, showing how the things most important to us like love and family become threatened when pulled into the world of espionage. There are also themes of complicity and the lack of integrity rife in modern-day politics, so current as we go through scandals such as Partygate and see the daily revelations from the COVID Enquiry. I also enjoyed reading a political thriller with two women as the focus, something often lacking in this genre. This is my first novel by this author and I look forward to reading others.

Released by No Exit Press in the UK on 29 June 2023.

Meet the Author

Anna Pitoniak is the author of The Futures, Necessary People, Our American Friend, and the forthcoming The Helsinki Affair. She graduated from Yale, where she majored in English and was an editor at the Yale Daily News. She worked for many years in book publishing, most recently as a Senior Editor at Random House. Anna grew up in Whistler, British Columbia, and now lives in East Hampton and New York City.