The Great War

THE HARLOT OF ST CECELIA’S . . . Between the covers

England, 1923. Eden Brior is a librarian at a London institution called St Cecelia’s, and a long way from home, even though her native Boston was at that time perhaps, the most English of American cities. Through no fault of her own, she becomes involved in the investigation into a particularly horrid murder, that of a beautiful – but damaged – French actress. The dead woman is Isabelle Jalbert, someone whose physical beauty has caused those around her – both men and women – an exquisite blend of pain and joy.

Her current husband (although we learn that she is guilty of bigamy) is an American theatre producer called Alan Holloway, although we have already been told that Isabelle has considerable ‘history’ with an apparently feckless and reckless man called Simon Cross who lives with his sister Meg and her husband Arthur in a London suburb.

I have been fascinated by The Great War since I was a teenager, have walked countless miles across the former battlefields, and I am drawn instinctively to novels set in the 1920s and 1930s. At the forefront of my mind is always a variant of the question, “What did you do in the war, Daddy?” Simon Cross is certainly of an age to have served, as is Inspector Garrett. In fact, Simon Cross served in France as a Captain in the East Surreys, and was awarded the Military Cross but, as he tells Garrett, “After The Somme, they just gave them to anyone who was left.” Two days after The Armistice, Cross simply disappeared in Paris, was eventually found, court marshaled and dishonorably discharged. Garrett also did his bit, but with the London Irish in Palestine, and he has a leg disfigured by Turkish shells and bullets to prove it.

While Cross lives with his sister and her rather pompous husband, Garrett rents a room in a noisy and inhospitable house. The owner sells up, and our man has to seek accommodation elsewhere. Cross is the enigma. He is apparently louche, decadent, and idle, but Garrett discovers he secretly trains as a sprinter. We also discover that his post war Paris days were spent in the company of both Isabelle and a mysterious painter called Marc Etienne, now in the later stages of morphine addiction, a habit he shared with Isabelle.

At the root of the mystery, I suppose, is the question of money. Simon Cross appears to have no income, yet he lives the high life of gentlemen’s clubs and expensive taxis. The pompous Arthur Drake is a university lecturer, but he and Meg can afford a chauffeur and a maid. Isabelle was supposed to be on the verge of a family bequest, and Alan Holloway, like many theatre producers, is almost permanently broke.

Eden Brior flits in and out of the narrative. She is certainly not a conventional heroine. She seems dowdy and frequently flustered, although intelligent and observant. In the end, she identifies the killer of Isabelle at about the same time as Garrett, but for different reasons.

Darcy Graves (below) grew up in Boston and holds an MA in English history. She brings to her work a deep love of the Golden Age of detective fiction — particularly Agatha Christie and P.D. James — and the whimsy of P.G. Wodehouse.

There is, at the end of the Kindle version of the book, a set of readers’ discussion questions, presumably aimed at groups that like to talk about books and their interpretation. One of the questions is about the title. Ms Graves asks, “Who, or what, do you think the title ultimately points toward?“Good question. For all her faults, Isabelle Jalbert was only briefly acquainted with St Cecelia’s and, if we take the ‘H’ word to mean a prostitute, then Eden’s morals seem to be unblemished. Perhaps, then, it is a ‘what’, and there is some metaphor hidden here. Obviously, this book is a pastiche, but it is delightfully done, with a genuine sense of awareness for the brittle and uncertain times that followed The Great War. It is independently published, and available now.

October 5, 2026 0

THE GUNS OF AUGUST . . . Between the covers

Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August was published in 1962. I was then 15 years old, and any reading I did was probably set texts for the looming ’O’ Level examinations, so I hope I can be forgiven for not reading her account of the events of 1914 earlier than 1973, when I was gifted a copy by a fellow teacher in Melbourne. Then, I read it at every opportunity, including the tram journeys to and from work along St Kilda Road. Her narrative drive, grasp of detail, and her ability to bring to life the petty and petulant relationships between senior military commanders and the sheer starving, parched and blood – shod lives of the poor bloody infantry, gripped me then, and I was determined to re-read it from the view of a widely-read and cynical near-octogenarian.

First, some publishing context. Between the wars there were many personal memoirs of the Great War, some of which were well written and historically accurate, but others less so. In what we now call the Cold War period, writers began to revisit the various hells of The Great War. Below is a very limited chronology of those 1960s publications.
1958 In Flanders Fields, Leon Wolff
1961 The Donkeys, Alan Clark
1961 Covenant With Death, John Harris*
1962 The Guns of August, Barbara Tuchman
1963 Haig, the Educated Soldier, John Terraine
1964 The Somme, Anthony Farrar Hockley
*This is a novel, albeit a very good one, based on the experiences of a Pals’ Battalion on !st July 1916.

Barbara Tuchman (nee Wurtheim) 1912 – 1989, won the Pulitzer Prize twice, once for this book and also for her account of a rather obscure (for Britons) episode in American history, the story of General Joseph Stilwell and his deeds in the Far East during WW2. One oddity is that in Tuchman’s account of the events leading up to the outbreak of WW1, and the chaotic eight weeks that followed, there is apparently little to interest her American readership, apart from the occasional reference to President Wilson, whose fervent desire for neutrality was never tested during this time. It is, admittedly, just one indicator, but when I logged in to Abebooks (other sellers are available) to check for second-hand copies, most of those on offer were in America. Incidentally, a mint first edition would set you back £ 918.72 plus £ 40.88 shipping. Even within the sometimes fantastical pricing world of second hand book dealers, one has to confess that, as good a book as it is, it is not that good.

Sadly, in my recently acquired version of the book, the maps were poor, but Tuchman’s vivid narrative and her awareness of the geography were sufficient to let me see the ‘lie of the land’. Her account is not comprehensive. The Russian victories over Austria Hungary in Galicia are only mentioned in passing but, taking the long view, they were to have no lasting impact on the war. For a description of how the conflict flared up in other parts of the world, I must send you in the direction of Ring of Fire, by Alex Churchill and Nicolai Eberholst (link to my review here). Tuchman focuses on three main battle zones, the clash between Russia and Germany in East Prussia, the fighting on France’s eastern border with Germany in Alsace Lorraine and, crucially, the Schlieffen Plan, involving Germany’s thrust through Belgium and down into northern France.

As much as Tuchman shows an astonishing grasp of geography, strategy and tactics, at the core of the book is her vivid portrayal of the key political and military figures who strutted their brief hour on this most bloody of stages. Strutting around on the edge of the German war effort is, of course, the Kaiser, but Tuchman wastes little time on this vainglorious man, neither does she use up much of her word count on Tsar Nicholas who was, despite his grandeur, only remotely connected to the events at the Front. Bestriding the narrative like Shakespeare’s Colossus is Joseph Joffre, the French commander in chief. His main quality was his stoic imperturbability. His world was based around three meals a day, a deceptively placid and ruminative character, and what modern writers might call ‘the long view’.

On the German side, Von Moltke was, nominally the puppet master, but under his command were such men as the mercurial Von Kluck, in charge of Schlieffen’s dictum that ‘the last man on the right should have The Channel at his back.’ On the Russian front, despite the enormous manpower superiority of the Tsar’s army, chaotic and disorganised supply lines resulted in the catastrophic defeat at Tannenburg, after which the Russian general, Samsonov, shot himself in a nearby forest.

So how does Tuchman portray British involvement in these tumultuous and violent weeks? Dispassionately, I would say. At the centre is Sir John French, one of the few British WW1 commanders not as yet successfully ‘rehabilitated’ by modern historians. She gives us a nervous and fractious little man, on his right hand the fragile Sir Archibald Murray, while on his left the eternal schemer, the suave Francophile Sir Henry Wilson. All British Great War buffs have been brought up on the story of Mons, and the murderous rifle fire of the BEF’s Lee Enfield rifles. The subsequent retreat is no less factual, nor is Horace Smith Dorrien’s calculated rearguard action at Le Cateau ( in direct contravention of French’s directive) In the end, French – belatedly and with reluctance – committed the BEF on the Marne.

It would be comforting to think that French’s custodianship of the BEF was a presage of the 300,000 men who lived to fight another day 26 years later at Dunkirk, but French then went on to preside over Ist Ypres, 2nd Ypres, Neuve Chapelle, Aubers Ridge and Loos, by which time most of the old BEF were just names on grave markers. Sir John’s own account of the events, 1914 (published in 1919) differs hugely from Tuchman’s account. French’s book (and I have read the relevant chapters) does, as one might expect from a man who was a brilliant cavalry leader in earlier war, exaggerated the role played the mounted troops. In his own lifetime, French’s book was vigorously criticised by none other than Sir John Fortescue, the official historian of the British Army. It is easy to criticise French, as he was ill-equipped for his role, but unlike General McLellan and his massive Army of The Potomac in the early stages of the American Civil War, he did not overestimate the strength of the enemy. The BEF’s six infantry divisions were dwarfed by the strength of both the Germans and the French.

Tuchman has a special place in her narrative for the military governor of Paris, Joseph Galieni. Wisely, she plays down the frequently exaggerated role played by the Paris taxis in the prelude to The Battle of The Marne, but she is unstinting in her praise for Galieni’s strategic awareness.

The social trope that involves the Germans employing impeccable strategy to secure sun beds in Mediterranean hotels, or their ability to devise cunning formations in football midfields must have had its birth somewhere, but it certainly wasn’t in the high summer of 1914. Yes, their precise railway timetables worked well up to a point, but became useless when it was realised that German engines and rolling stock wouldn’t work in Belgium or France because of different gauges. The relentless planned advance of Von Kluck’s divisions was all very well on paper, but when the field kitchens could not keep pace with the leading infantry units, and when men marched in wrecked boots filled with blood, the reality was very different. Tuchman paints a vivid picture of Germany’s armies, hundreds of miles from home, bloodshod and exhausted, sleepless and half – starved, facing a powerful French force and a largely intact BEF in what came to be known as the First Battle of The Marne.

She leaves us after the events of early September 1914, but the First Battle of The Aisne and The Race To The Sea are both well covered elsewhere. Her book remains a masterpiece of narrative history. To conclude, Barbara Tuchman makes us flies on the wall in cabinet meeting rooms across Europe, and hidden observers within General Staff offices of the armies of Germany, Britain, France and Russia. The edition pictured below was published in 2014.

June 7, 2026 0

RING OF FIRE . . . Between the covers

In my reading experience, the definitive account of the outbreak of The Great War remains Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August (1962). The author made us flies on the wall in cabinet meeting rooms across Europe, and hidden observers within General Staff offices of the armies of Germany, Britain, France and Russia. This book is very different. Its premise is that this was a truly global conflict, principally due to the vast colonial outreach of the major powers. Men and women, ordinary citizens of places in Africa that were ruled from London, Berlin, Paris and Brussels, remote settlements in the Caucuses who were subject to the rule of the Tsar, shoeless peasants in the outer reaches of the ailing Ottoman empire, and those living in the United States and South America who were part of the colossal diaspora from Europe – all felt the rough hand of destiny on their shoulder.

The celebrated (but not always admired) historian AJP Taylor famously argued that the outbreak of the war was inevitable, due to military planning relying on inflexible railway timetables. Once the trains, packed with tens of thousands of men, headed off to their destination, then conflict was inevitable. This theory is easily challenged but Churchill and Eberholst give this example:
Britain’s rail network comprised some 23,000 miles of track. On 4th August 1914, 130 companies were effectively taken over by the government. At Aldershot, from 5th August officers were being handed dossiers that revealed the plan for their departure. For instance: ‘Train No 463Y will arrive at siding B at 12.35 a.m., 10th August. You will complete loading by 3.40 a.m.’

Britain’s army in 1914 was tiny compared to those of France, Germany and Russia. It was even outnumbered by the army of Belgium, but it was superbly trained and had relatively recent battlefield experience in the Boer Wars. The key difference between Britain and the empires of France and Germany was in the existence of Britain’s white dominions. Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa were, in theory at least, at one with the mother country’s foreign policy.

One of the many valid points made by the authors is the vexatious question of perceived neutrality. Long before the first shots were fired in the war, developed nations needed vast quantities of imports and, were they fortunate enough to possess natural resources, ships to export material and goods elsewhere. The ownership of cargo vessels was perhaps not as opaque then as it is now but, for example, if a Swedish ship sailed into Hamburg loaded with iron ore, did that compromise Sweden’s notional neutrality? What if an American ship loaded with wheat were headed for the Port of London? Did that make the vessel fair game for German submarines?

The authors remind us that by the time the trenches ran from Switzerland to the Belgian coast, maps were able to be made showing every dip or fold in the land and – literally – every large shell crater. In the dying days of August 1914, particularly in the rural areas of Galicia, East Prussia and Serbia, the landscape was a complete mystery to field commanders. Knowledge of the terrain was almost completely absent, resulting in disastrous tactical blunders by all sides.

Comparing different kinds of horror brought about by war is, perhaps, futile, but as an amateur historian brought up on grim tales of life in the Western Front trenches, I was struck by the descriptions of the relentless carnage of these early weeks of the war. Yes, it was a war of movement but, in particular, it was fought in intense August heat. Men on the march were driven mad by thirst; tinder-dry fields and woods caught fire quickly, cremating the dead and wounded alike. This was a new kind of war; medical services were woefully inadequate to meet carnage on this scale. I was quickly disabused of any notions I had that these early battles between the huge armies were somehow cleaner and less grisly than the trench warfare which followed them.

Another surprise (at least to this woefully ignorant reader) was to learn that Japan and Britain fought together to drive Germany out of Chinese city of Tsingtao (below) between August and November 1914. It is a sobering reflection on the fragile nature of national alliances to think that less than a decade earlier, Japan and Russia locked horns in a savage war. Now, they were, notionally, allies in a war against Germany.

As autumn turned into winter, the major powers were all unsteady on their feet. The French had suffered astonishing losses in the east, but had engineered a miracle on The Marne. Germany’s relentless advance through Belgium had been thwarted, and they had back-pedalled in disarray to dig in north of The Aisne. Despite the debacle at Tannenberg, Russia had inflicted a monstrous defeat on Austria Hungary in Galicia. This account, from a Hapsburg officer, is horrific :

‘Scenes from Dante’s Inferno were happening on the road. Driven by instinct, both men and horses pressed forward, regardless of the corpses and wounded lying on the ground. Horses hooves were treading over bellies and heads. Intestines, guts, brains mixed with mud covered the road with a bloody mess. The screams of the wounded, men and horses, together with the cracking rifles, grenade and shell explosions drove one to near insanity.’

I am always intrigued by writing partnerships, and ponder the (largely irrelevant) question, “Who did what?” Whatever the respective inputs were here, Churchill and Eberholst have written a book that is historically authoritative but always accessible. UK Great War literature tends, for quite laudable reasons, centred on the Western Front and the great calamities that took place there, but here we have a timely reminder of the days before the trenches were dug “from Switzerland to the sea” and the horrific slaughter that took place in places with names that have long since vanished from the map. Ring of Fire will be published by Apollo on 8th May.

April 26, 2025 0

THE PARIS PEACEMAKERS . . . Between the covers

The guns that began their incessant thunder in August 1914 are, at last, silent. The German field army has surrendered, the Kaiser’s High Seas Fleet lies at anchor in Scapa Flow, and Wilhelm himself has abdicated. In Paris, the great, the good – but more importantly, the victorious – are assembling to pick the bones out of five years of carnage. Meanwhile, we meet the Rutherford family. Their home is in Thurso, on the stormy north eastern coast of Scotland. Jack is just one of nearly 900,000 British men to have paid what was poetically called ‘the supreme sacrifice’. His sisters are both now in France: Corran is with a charity in Dieppe, bringing some sort of education to young soldiers who have had academic opportunities denied them for the last five years. Stella is in Paris, having been engaged as one of the hundreds of typists needed to record the decisions and arguments in the drama shortly to be played out at Versailles. Alex is still on Royal Navy duties, with his ship keeping a watchful eye on a war that is still being fought between Russian Bolsheviks and the Tsarists they overthrew.The novel follows the lives and loves of the Rutherford girls.

Flora Johnston handles the historical background well. It is now widely acknowledged that the Treaty of Versailles did not end the war between Germany and her enemies. It merely put it in on hold for twenty years. There was not to be a new world, or anything remotely like the ‘land fit for heroes’ that optimists imagined, either in Britain or France,and certainly not in Germany. In vain did US President Wilson strive for some kind of settlement that would be for all time. Who can blame France – with 1.4 million dead, thousands of villages reduced to rubble, its industry shattered and a priceless architectural heritage destroyed – for wanting to make Germany pay?

We see 1919 through many different eyes, and this is a story skillfully told. Arthur, Corran’s teacher colleague is embittered by the sacrifices his own parents made to educate him, and white-knuckled with anger that, back home, his own family, protesting against the lack of jobs, are faced with baton charges by police. Rob Campbell, once Corran’s intended fiancée, is worn down and traumatised by his work as a battlefield surgeon. His fondest hope is purely escapist, and it is that one day he might be able to relive his glory days on the rugby pitch. But with so many of his fellow players rotting under the French and Belgian soil, what hope does he have?

The game of rugby is a powerful motif in this story. in an England-Scotland game in March 1914 the thirty young men are at the peak of fitness, chests bursting with pride. Too many of those chests would, in the coming turmoil, simply become targets for German bullets and shell fragments. On New Year’s Day 1920, the first game of any consequence to follow the war was played, between France and Scotland. It is a small and hesitant step forward, but there are too many missing names of the teamsheets.

The story is a remarkable blend of history, romance and social observation. Flora Johnston is a fly on the wall at a bitter ceremony in a young man’s bedroom that must have been repeated countless times across Britain and, indeed, France, and Germany:

“She felt again the overwhelming sadness of sorting through Jack’s possessions yesterday. All over the country there were houses like this, filled with the ephemera of hundreds of thousands of lives that had unexpectedly ceased to exist. Clothes and footballs, bicycles and egg collections, razors and comics and diaries and gramophone records. So much of it: surely far too much for the nations attics or rubbish heaps or junk shops to absorb.”

The Peacemakers of Paris reaches out to so many different readers. WW1 buffs who appreciated Birdsong and Pat Barker’s trilogy will find something here. Those who like romance, a hint of heartbreak, but an optimistic ending will also be happy. Most importantly, anyone who enjoys a novel which is well researched with convincing characters will not be disappointed. Published by Allison & Busby, the book is available now.

April 17, 2024 0

THE BEST POSTBOY IN ENGLAND . . . Between the covers

The novel is mostly set in Kent during 1916 and 1917, but there is a prologue – and epilogue – which take place in 1940. The title character is a fourteen year old lad called Freddie Lovegrove. He is, for someone living in a rural village, well educated, but he lives with his nearly blind mother and, with no father and no money coming into the house, he gets the job of village postboy.

The grandest property in Eagley is Tendring, a house occupied by Suhina and Stephen Harkness. Suhina is Indian, and Stephen is manager of a local munitions factory. He was badly wounded in the Boer War, and lives in constant pain. They had three sons, but the elder, Arthur was killed in 1915 in the Batlle of Aubers Ridge. The two other boys – Edward and Tristan – are both fighting in France. Tendring has two housemaids, Harriet and Phoebe. We soon learn that Phoebe is pregnant, but the deeper significance of this is not revealed until near the end of the book.

Tendring becomes a temporary convalescent home for wounded soldiers, and the first three arrive. Jack merely has an injured foot and is a possible malingerer. Gabriel is physically sound, but has extreme shell shock. Christopher Ellis, the third man, is hideously wounded. He has lost both his hands, and has a terrible facial wound.

Suhina Harkness has befriended Freddie and he, in turn, is fascinated by her. The attraction is not sexual, but he finds her exotic and is drawn to her deep emotional intelligence, and spends as much time as he can at Tendring.

There are pivotal points in the book, and the first is when Freddie agrees to be amanuensis to Christopher. He writes a letter addressed to Christopher’s wife Anne in their Nova Scotia home. The letter is loving, but makes no mention of Christopher’s injuries. Freddie takes the letter back to the post office, fully intending to post it later. Next, Freddie is working late, and he intercepts a motorcycle despatch rider who has a telegram addressed to Major and Mrs Harkness. When he takes it to Tendring and hands it to Suhani, she learns that Edward Harkness was killed in the fighting for High Wood, on the Somme.

Freddie’s fortunes have become inextricably mingled with those who live at Tendring. While on a woodland path to the house Freddie discovers the horrifying sight of Christoper Ellis’s body, hanging from a tree. After the dreadful discovery, Freddie is in the depths of depression, but is dramatically brought out of his reverie:

“First his face filled with hot blood when he suddenly remembered he hadn’t posted Christopher’s original letter; it was still under the blotter, waiting. Second, it had not occurred to him until now that it was impossible for a man with no hands to hang himself.”

The police have already reached that conclusion and, after a witness at Tendring said they saw a man with a limp out in the dark on the night Christopher died, Stephen Harkness is arrested on suspicion of murder, but is released when Suhani lies that he was with her, in her bed, all night.

Freddie is ever more conscious that his job has transformed him into The Angel of Death, and when another letter from the military arrives for Tendring, he takes it home with him. When, after much agonising, he steams it open, his worst fears are confirmed. The private memorial in Eagley churchyard to Arthur Harkness must now be altered to include the names of his two brothers. He makes the fateful decision not to deliver the letter, and the consequences are immense.

This book bears the hallmarks of tragedy, whether believe that what happens Is the result of personal flaws, or intervention from ‘The President of The Immortals, in Aeschylean phrase’ that Hardy referred to at the end of Tess of The D’Urbervilles. For Suhani comes redemption and – although much later, and only partly – Freddie too, but for Stephen Harkness the downfall is absolute, and Stephen Frost leaves the truth of the death of Christopher Ellis as an enigma.

This is a book which dwells on physical pain caused by battle, but also the mental pain of a marriage disintegrating, the agonising dilemma of a teenager trying to be kind but, in doing so, inflicting cruelty. Sometimes it is unbearably poignant, but riven through with a deep vein of compassion.

The Best Postboy In England deserves to sit on the shelf alongside other epic accounts of The Great War and its consequences. Books such as as Covenant With Death (John Harris,1961), Regeneration (Pat Barker,1991) Birdsong ( Sebastian Faulkes,1993) and The Photographer of The Lost (Caroline Scott, 2019). It is published by Burnt Orchid Press and is available now.

March 24, 2024 0

A DARK STEEL DEATH . . . Between the covers

Chris Nickson’s long running saga about Leeds copper Tom Harper continues with our man now Deputy Chief Constable. We are in January 1917 and, like in other major cities, patrols are on the look out for the silent peril of Zeppelins, while Harper has a possible act of sabotage to investigate after a pile of newspaper and kindling is found inside a warehouse used for storing military clothing. The book begins, however, a month earlier with a true historical incident.

In nearby Barnbow, a huge munitions factory had been established from scratch in 1915. Its prime function was the filling of shells. With the constant drain of manpower to the armed forces, the workforce at Barnbow became over 90% female. On the night of 5th December 1916 a massive explosion occurred in Hut 42, killing 35 women outright, maiming and injuring dozens more. In some cases identification was only possible by the identity disks worn around the necks of the workers. It is believed that the explosion was triggered by a shell being packed with double the required amount of explosives. The dead women, at last, have their own memorial.

With the Barnbow investigation ongoing, Harper has more problems on his hands when a sentry outside a barracks in the city is shot dead with, it turns out, a SMLE (Short Magazine Lee Enfield) .303 rifle, adapted for sniping, which was stolen from the barracks own armoury.

There are so many things to admire about this series, not least being the meticulous historical research carried out by the author. One example is the development of police investigative techniques. Back at the beginning, in Gods of Gold (2014), the idea that people could be identified by their fingerprints would have been seen as pure fantasy but, as we see in this novel, it was an essential tool for the police by 1917.

Back to Tom Harper’s current case. As he and his detectives sift what little evidence there is, they seem to be chasing their own tails. Harper’s worries don’t end as he closes his office door each evening. In an earlier book, we learned the grim news that his vivacious and beautiful wife Annabelle, a tireless campaigner for female equality, has developed early-onset dementia. Harper has employed a Belgian refugee couple to run Annabelle’s pub, and keep a close eye on his wife, but he never knows from one day to the next what state she will be in. If he is lucky, she will show glimpses of her old self; when she is having a bad day, she inhabits a totally imaginary world and slips from all the anchors of reality. The most painful moments for Harper come when Annabelle believes that he is her late first husband, Harry.

Eventually the case breaks. Harper and his team are astonished to find they are facing not just one killer, but a partnership. Two former soldiers, Gordon Gibson and James Openshaw were virtually buried alive when a shell exploded near them on the Western Front. Openshaw was a sniper and Gibson, not much of a shot but with superb eyesight, was his spotter. Both men were invalided out, but Openshaw, after a spell at the famous Edinburgh hospital, Craiglockhart, remains under constant medical care at Gledhow Hall, a Leeds stately home used as a hospital for the duration of the war. It seems that for whatever motive, Gibson smuggled Openshaw and the rifle out of the hospital to commit the murder of the sentry. Now, Gibson is at large with the rifle and, despite his poor marksmanship, has shot at Tom Harper’s official car, and badly wounded a policeman.

The endgame takes place as Gibson uses all his fieldcraft to find his way into a heavily guarded Gledhow Hall to liberate Openshaw and resume their killing spree. The finale is breathtaking, powerfully written – and deeply moving. A Dark Steel Death is published by Severn House and is available now.

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September 25, 2022 0

THE MIRROR GAME . . . Between the covers

Even before I read the first page, this book ticked a number of important boxes for me, including:
1920s ✔️
London ✔️
Great War background ✔️
Beautifully imagined cover graphics ✔️
I’m happy to say my initial optimism was not to be shattered. So, what goes on? We are in 1925 and in a London that has borne relatively little structural damage from the recent war compared to what it was to suffer less that two decades later. The major damage, however is to the people and families of the city. Across Britain, the war has claimed the lives of 886,000 participants, mostly men between the ages of 18 and 40, and London has more than its fair share of widows, children without fathers and parents without sons.

Investigator and journalist Harry Lark fought for King and Country and emerged relatively unscathed although, like so many other men, the sounds, smells and images of the trenches are ever present at the back of his mind and he has also become addicted to laudanum – a tincture of opium and alcohol. When he is contacted by a friend and benefactor, Lady Charlotte Carlisle, she tells him that she thinks she has seen a ghost. Sitting in Mayfair’s Café Boheme, she has seen a man who is the image of Captain Adrian Harcourt, a pre-war politician who was killed on the Western Front in 1918, and was engaged to be married to her daughter Ferderica. But this man is no phantom who can fade into the wallpaper. Other customers notice him. He is flesh and blood, and approaches Lady Charlotte’s table, stares into her eyes, but then leaves without saying a word. She asks Lark to investigate.

Harry’s search takes him to Harcourt’s father who throws him out on his ear. He then visits an exclusive gentleman’s club, where he asks one too many questions, and is beaten within an inch of his life by thugs in the pay of someone powerful. Helped by an old friend, retired policeman Bob Clements, he learns that Adrian Harcourt was listed as being killed in a firefight near a ruined French village, when the company he commanded were slaughtered. There were a mere handful of survivors, one of which was the son of an influential London gangster, Alec Ivers.

Harry Lark begins to get the sense that something terrible caused the death of most of Harcourt’s company, and that some seriously well-connected people have ensured that the truth about their demise has been successfully covered up. Iver’s son has been committed to an institution for mentally and physically damaged WW1 soldiers, and Filton Hall is Harry’s next port of call.

As he tries to learn the truth Harry himself takes both mental and physical batterings, while there are a string of deaths around the fringes of the affair. His growing love for Ferderica seems to be reciprocated, but then they both receive a huge shock which turns the case on its head.

Author Guy Gardner’s day job – or, more likely, night job – was jazz pianist, but now he teaches piano at home in Dorset and is planning to write more novels. He also says he enjoys a glass of single malt, so I raise a glass of my favourite, Lagavulin, in his honour!

The book is certainly not short on action, intriguing characters and plot twists but, unsurprisingly, Guy Gardner is at his best when describing the occasions when music (Ferderica is a violinist, and Harry is a music journalist) is woven into the story. The Mirror Game is atmospheric and has a convincing sense sense of time and place. It would be good even coming from an established novelist, but as a debut it is excellent. It is published by The Book Guild, and is available now.

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May 25, 2022 0

THE VISITORS . . . Between the covers

Visitors008 copy

England, 1923. Like thousands upon thousands of other young women, Esme Nicholls is a widow. Husband Alec lies in a functional grave in a military cemetery in Flanders. His face remains in a few photographs, and in her memories. Left penniless, she ekes out a living by writing a nature-notes feature for a northern provincial newspaper, and serving as a personal assistant to an older widow, Mrs Pickering. Mrs P has the advantage of being able to visit her husband’s grave whenever she wants, as he was not a victim of the war.

Mrs P decides she would like to visit her brother in Cornwall. and sends Esme on ahead. Gilbert Stanedge, funded by his sister, presides over a community of damaged young men he once commanded during the war. They live in a rambling old house they have renamed Espérance. Each man has been scarred – physically and mentally – by the horrors they faced in the trenches. Sebastian, Hal, Clarence and Rory contribute as best they can – paintings, pottery, husbandry – to the upkeep of the house.

Esme’s initial reluctance to go to Cornwall is tempered by the fact that it was where Alec grew up. Could a visit to the street where he lived, or a stroll along the beaches he played on as a child keep the flame of remembrance burning a little brighter, for a little longer?

Caroline Scott (right) treats us to a high summer in Cornwall, where every flower, rustle of leaves in the breeze and flit of insect is described with almost intoxicating detail. Readers who remember her previous novel When I Come Home Again will be unsurprised by this detail. In the novel, she references that greatest of all poet of England’s nature, John Clare, but I also sense something of Matthew Arnold’s poems The Scholar Gypsy and Thyrsis, so memorably set to music by Ralph Vaughan Williams.

Another clever plot device brings us face to face with the horrors that the men faced in the trenches of Flanders. Rory has written a book detailing what happened. It is still unpublished but, as Esme grows closer to him, he lets her read it. She is still, of course searching for something – anything – of Alec.

Half way through the novel, Caroline Scott employs a vertiginous plot twist. Readers must decide for themselves if it is plausible. Further detail from me would be a spoiler, but yes, after a few raised eyebrows it did work. The Visitors is an astonishing tale of love, betrayal, heartache and – finally – redemption. With its two predecessors (click on the images below for more information) it makes a remarkable trilogy of novels about the men and women who survived the carnage of 1914 – 1918, but came away with scars and damage that sometimes never healed. Published by Simon & Schuster, The Visitors is out now.

December 9, 2021 1

ROBERT GOODING HENSON . . . A memory

Robert Henson, the central character in J.M. Cobley’s A Hundred Years to Arras is not a fictional creation. He lived and breathed, but was just one of the estimated forty five thousand men to perish during the 1917 battle. He died of wounds, and is buried in Hervin Farm British Cemetery, St Laurent Blangy, on the outskirts of Arras. The Western Times reported his death on Wednesday 9th May 1917.

There is no joy in this sad tale, but at least Robert Henson did not leave a widow – or children – back in Somerset. As Cobley’s book relates, Robert’s death plunged his father deeper into a spiral of drink and depression, and all his mother was left with was the War Gratuity – a paltry one pound eight shillings and fourpence, some mass produced medals, and what was sarcastically termed the “Dead Man’s Penny”, below. (This is not Robert’s actual Memorial Plaque, but an artist’s impression)

Robert’s regiment, The Somerset Light Infantry, has a distinguished history. It was founded in 1685 as part of King James II’s response to the Monmouth Rebellion. Under various titles it fought in every major conflict including the Napoleonic Wars, the Crimean War, the Afghan Wars and the Boer War until it was finally merged with other regiments to become The Light Infantry in 1968.

I am old enough to remember when living veterans of The Great War were numbered in their tens of thousands, and I grew up in a country still mourning its WW2 dead, but there was – and always will be – something different about the 1914-1919 war. Poet Vernon Scannell expressed this perfectly: (the full poem is here)

Whenever the November sky
Quivers with a bugle’s hoarse, sweet cry,
The reason darkens; in its evening gleam
Crosses and flares, tormented wire, grey earth
Splattered with crimson flowers,
And I remember,
Not the war I fought in
But the one called Great
Which ended in a sepia November
Four years before my birth.

Robert Henson’s name lives on. Not just in the poignant words of a modern novel, or carved on a headstone in a lonely French cemetery, but much closer to the place he called home, whose trees, streams, fields and cloudscapes shaped his upbringing. This simple plaque is on the wall of St John the Baptist church Skilgate.