1944, the cruelest winter bites as the war arrives on Bologna’s doorstep. The rabid fascist Black Brigades, untethered since the collapse of Mussolini’s government, unleash a reign of terror across the city that even the Germans finds repugnant. In this chaos every life hangs by a thread
The war is finally encroaching on the village of Le Case in Tuscany in early winter, 1943. It is now occupied by German and Italian troops, as the allied advance into Italy gets ever closer. This is a community distanced from the conflict until now, previously cut off and little changed for a centur
Grimm’s Fairy Tales were not originally written for children. They were collected, adapted and preserved by the Brothers Grimm, in the nineteenth century; they were folk tales handed down through generations, originating in times when people lived more closely with the earth and the nature that su
War seemed to wander aimlessly through the former Russian Empire … The Tsars had gone but the Bolsheviks and Soviets and Red army were making only patchy progress. The horrors and destruction of war are everywhere in Kyiv; crime, violence and corruption are rife; buildings lie in ruins, and povert
Michela McKay is a tough, corrupt and fearless officer in the Spanish National Police Force, Benidorm branch. We’re told early on that she’s on a very specific mission to track down Reggie Kray’s iconic Dunhill lighter. Yes, I was as intrigued as you will be. This is the story of her craz
The saying goes that “old soldiers never die – they merely fade away” and the same might well be said about old policemen: a sleuth will always be a sleuth, even if only from the comfort of an armchair. In the last Inspector Hunkeler novel, The Murder of Anton Livius, he asserted: I am
