WWII

Kristi Jones: Murder in the Ranks

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Debut

Another WWII book….nooooo….but, wait.  It was a big war with lots of unexpected corners and revelations, and this book highlights a bit of the war I hadn’t ever known about.  It’s focused on the WAACs, or Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps.  As originally created, the women who volunteered to serve had none of the rights of the men in the regular army.  This was pretty quickly corrected and the WAACs became simply the WACs, without “auxiliary” in the moniker.  For the purposes of this novel, however, Auxiliary Dottie Lincoln has signed up as a WAAC and is serving alongside other women in Algiers, at a time when the war wasn’t going so well for the Allies. read more

Laura Jensen Walker: Death of a Flying Nightingale

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Recently, while reading the Jungle Red Writers blog, I was entranced by Laura Jensen Walker’s description of how she got the idea for this book: a TV show about nursing orderlies in the WWII British Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF). Dubbed the “Flying Nightingales,” these women, some as young as 17, were give a mere six weeks medical training before being put in charge of the care of 24 wounded soldiers per flight. Since the planes carried supplies that included munitions, they could not be marked with a red cross, making them fair game to German fire. As Walker explained in her blog post “On the flights back to England, the nursing orderlies weren’t allowed to wear parachutes. They were expected to remain on board with the wounded if the plane crashed […]. The Nightingales changed bandages, emptied colostomy bags, cleared tracheotomy tubes, wedged sick bags beneath the chins of the wounded, and provided tea and comfort to soldiers with horrific injuries.” read more

James R. Benn: The Phantom Patrol

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Billy Boyle #19

War is hell. In his gentle, narrative manner, James R. Benn has demonstrated through 19 and counting Billy Boyle novels this harsh verity. All of them, in their own way, are excellent, some of them more traditionally structured mysteries, like the locked room puzzler The Red Horse (2020) or the English village set Proud Sorrows (2023). But they all take place during WWII and feature at least one bravura battle or action scene.  Book 19 is set during the Battle of the Bulge, and even though hostilities would end several months later, Billy finds himself still in the thick of things. read more

Rhys Bowen: The Rose Arbor

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Standalone

Rhys Bowen’s latest standalone mystery spans time and space with story elements set in 1943 Tyneham (a village in Dorset) and 1968 London. Reporter Liz Houghton struggles to solve the mystery of a missing child in 1968 that might be connected to missing children who disappeared in 1943. Led by information from her policewoman roommate, Liz begins exploring Dorset for clues about Little Lucy that lead her to suspect the missing child might be held in the ruins of Tyneham, a village requisitioned and destroyed by the Army in 1943. What unfolds are parallel tales of villagers displaced from homes their families had lived in for generations, children displaced by the war, and displaced children lost in the wartime shuffle from city to country. During her investigation, Liz meets the son of the displaced Lord of the village manor and together they explore surprising yet believable clues that tie Liz to Tyneham. read more

David Lewis: A Jewel in the Crown

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The Secret Churchill Files #1

Because I’d thought I’d seen it all before, I had low expectations when I picked this book up. WWII, the Blitz, Churchill, feisty undercover heroine, check, check and check, we’ve all been there and read that, right?  But as it turns out in the right hands WWII can still be fascinating, and with a vibrant truly larger than life character like Winston Churchill, Lewis creates a fresh, vivid read that will have you flipping pages quickly.  A policewoman when the book opens, heroine Catrine Colline, a working-class Welsh girl with a socialist bent, is soon recruited by “512,” an undercover outfit composed only of women dedicated to furthering Britain’s war efforts. read more

Susan Elia MacNeal: The Last Hope

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Maggie Hope #11

I’ve been a full on fan of this series from the publication of Mr. Churchill’s Secretary (2012).  MacNeal’s combination of adventure story, history and a vivid and intrepid heroine in the form of Maggie Hope has been irresistible. Maggie, an American who came to Britain during the war and snagged a job in Churchill’s office, finds herself coming full circle: in the first novel she found an assassin, in this last novel, she’s asked to be an assassin.

Many things have happened to Maggie over the course of this long war, and she’s now a full on member of the SOE – Special Operations Executive – Churchill’s squad of espionage agents, of whom more than 3,000 were women.  Their work involved going into occupied Europe and working undercover.  The SOE was formed in 1940, and it was dissolved in ’46, so as this series draws to a close, so does the war and the SOE itself.  It’s a fitting arc for this wonderful character. read more

Ashley Weaver: Locked in Pursuit

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Electra McDonnell #4

I am a huge fan of this series, set in London during the blitz.  Safecracker Electra, working with her uncle Mick, was picked up by British intelligence in the first book for special “help” on a government job, and now four books in, she’s wanting to give up her former life of crime and is completely committed to government service.  Weaver also has the soul of a romance writer, and Electra has two possible and delightful beaus: Felix, whom she’s known since childhood, and the dashing Major Ramsey, her “handler”.  In the last book the two shared a passionate kiss but they now seem to be trying to forget about it.  However, the heart wants what the heart wants. read more

Rhys Bowen: The Paris Assignment

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Rhys Bowen is one of the best in the biz when it comes to narrative – I think her closest peer may be Harlan Coben.  With both writers, picking up one of their books means you will be subsumed by exquisite storytelling that’s impossible to look away from. Rhys Bowen trends more toward historical fiction rather than Coben’s domestic suspense model, so if that’s your jam, you can’t go wrong nabbing a copy of her latest book, The Paris Assignment.

The story begins in 1931 Paris, when young Sorbonne students Madeline Grant and Giles Martin meet.  Madeline is shy and sheltered, and Giles, the son of French nobility, is at home in Paris.  Madeline, at the Sorbonne for a semester away from her English college, hadn’t even dared to leave her hostel when Giles scoops her up and introduces her to the world of coffee shops, politics, friends, and fine food.  Well, you may guess where this is going – it’s 1931, but – it’s Paris! – and before long Madeline is pregnant.  Giles marries her, despite being disowned by his family, and the only support they have left is Madeline’s elderly French aunt. read more

Jacqueline Winspear: The White Lady

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Jacqueline Winspear’s The White Lady spans two wars. Despite this epic scope, the book has the feel of an intimate character study.  Luckily, the character at the center of the novel, Elinor White, is well worth a look.  As a little girl in Belgium with an British mother and a Belgian father, the book opens as the war begins and little Lini’s father is gone.  Somehow, even as a 10 year old, Elinor knows she will never see her father again, so she, her mother, and her older sister, Ceci, form a tight unit, a unit that becomes much tighter during the German occupation of their little village. When a strange woman asks them to help out, the two girls become a part of the resistance. read more

Cara Black: Night Flight to Paris

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The second novel from Cara Black featuring WWII sniper/assassin Kate Rees is just as nail-bitingly difficult to put down as the first book.  Kate is getting her mojo back in Scotland, training recruits, when she’s whisked to London to renew her spycraft skills and get a new assignment.  She’s given specific instructions, but little information.  She’s to be sent to Paris with some penicillin, kill a target, extract an operative and return – within two days.  Black gives the reader the full treatment on every step of Kate’s journey, so you are with her on the bumpy flight to Paris, the landing in a field, and her exhaustion as the finds her way to the city to begin her mission. read more