Book Synopsis:
The new blockbuster thriller from Graham Hurley, The Blood of Others is part of the SPOILS OF WAR Collection, a thrilling, beguiling blend of fact and fiction born of some of the most tragic, suspenseful, and action-packed events of World War II.
Dieppe, August 1942. A catastrophe no headline dared admit.
Plans are underway for the boldest raid yet on Nazi-occupied France. Over six thousand men will storm ashore to take the port of Dieppe. Lives will change in an instant – both on the beaches and in distant capitals.
Annie Wrenne, working at Lord Mountbatten’s cloak-and-dagger Combined Operations headquarters, is privy to the top secret plans for the daring cross-Channel raid.
Young Canadian journalist George Hogan, protege of influential Lord Beaverbrook, faces a crucial assignment that will test him to breaking point.
And Abwehr intelligence officer Wilhelm Schultz is baiting a trap to lure thousands of Allied troops to their deaths.
Three lives linked by Operation Jubilee: the Dieppe Raid, 19 August 1942. Over six thousand men will storm the heavily defended French beaches.
Less than half of them will make it back alive.
The blockbuster SPOILS OF WAR non-chronological collection features compelling recurring characters whose fragmented lives mirror the war that shattered the globe. For fans of Philip Kerr and Robert Harris.
My Review:
I’m a huge fan of this author so I was very excited to learn he had a new book coming out. Once again he’s written a fascinating, absorbing book that’s based on true events.
The story is told from the point of view of a Canadian journalist called George Hogan and German Intelligence Officer Wilhelm Schultz. Of the two I much prefer George who came across as a determined and hardworking character. His ability to alway be in the right place for a story has drawn attention to himself and as well as trying to follow leads he’s also having to prove he’s not a spy. His relationship with Annie who works in Lord Mountbatten’s office puts him under deeper suspicion. Wilhelm Schultz was a character I loved to hate and I didn’t like that he stopped at nothing to get the results he wanted. It was very chilling to witness him planning events that you know so many died in.
I always love books set in the Second World War especially if they teach me something new about the period. I hadn’t read anything about the Dieppe landings so found it interesting to learn more about them, particularly from the two different sides. The author has clearly done his research and I thought it was clever how the author managed to bring these true events to life. I also found it interesting to see how journalists operated at that time and to realise how brave they had to be.
This story has a great pace to it and I was quickly drawn into the story and into the characters lives. The author has a great way of describing events so I felt like I was actually there watching everything unfold. It’s a very intense read and I found it difficult to put down as I was so caught up in the story and wanted to find out what happened. As the story is based on true events the story was quite emotional at times but I still enjoyed following the story to it’s sad conclusion.
Huge thanks to Sophie for inviting me onto the blog tour and for my copy of this book. If you’re a fan of historical fiction then you need to read this book.
About The Author:
Born November, 1946, Clacton-on-Sea, Essex. Seaside childhood punctuated by football, swimming, afternoons on the dodgems, run-ins with the police, multiple raids on the local library…plus near-total immersion in English post-war cinema classics including The Dam Busters, Ice Cold in Alex, The Wooden Horse, The Cockleshell Heroes and Reach For The Sky. War-crazy? Sort of…Wins scholarship to a London boarding school and then onward to Cambridge University. Reads English, volunteers for Six-Day War (those films again!), and emerges three years later with five mercifully unpublished manuscripts, still intent on becoming a full-time novelist. Yet more rejection slips (plus hunger) compel a career rethink…Becomes a promotion script-writer with Southern Television, then researcher, then director. Spends the next twenty years making ITV documentaries, many of them networked. Films seabed wrecks of the Titanic and the Bismarck (with American oceanographer Bob Ballard), profiles the Brighton Bomber, produces ITV’s account of Richard Branson’s near-fatal attempt to cross the Atlantic by balloon, wins a number of awards…but still dreams of getting into print.An ITV commission for 6-part drama series Rules of Engagement is sucessfully finessed into a two-book contract with Pan-Macmillan. Two more novels, both dubbed “international thrillers” follow. Sacked after Television South loses the ITV franchise and embarks on new career as – at last – a full-time novelist.To date, 25 novels, one biography, two books for challenged readers, plus Airshow, a fly-on-the-wall novel-length piece of reportage, and Backstory, a book-length account of how and why I embarked on crime fiction. Draws gleefully on home-town Portsmouth (“Pompey”) as the basis for an on-going crime series featuring D/I Joe Faraday and D/C Paul Winter. Contributes five years of personal columns to the Portsmouth News, pens a number of plays and dramatic monologues for local production (including the city’s millenium celebration, Willoughby and Son), then decamps to Devon for a more considered take on Pompey low-life.The Faraday series comes to an end after 12 books. Healthy sales at home and abroad, plus an on-going (and immensely successful) series of French TV adaptations, tempt Orion to commission a spin-off series, set in the West Country, featuring D/S Jimmy Suttle.First book in the series, Western Approaches, publishes 2012. Second title, Touching Distance, already in the bag.Married to the delectable Lin. Has three grown-up sons (Tom, Jack and Woody). Plus recently-arrived grandson Dylan. A corker.Lifetime ambition? To properly master colloquial French. Current passion? Coastal quad rowing with Lin and the rest of The Forty Niners (don’t ask).Favourite time of the day? Six’o’clock.More on my website: http://www.grahamhurley.co.uk
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