WORLD AT WAR
These action-packed fiction reads focus on three different moments in history
THE LONDON BOOKSHOP AFFAIR
By LOUISE FEIN
William Morrow
It’s 1942 and Jeannie Duchesne is in a bit of a pickle – she’s pregnant and alone after her American pilot fiancé was killed on a mission.
Disowned by her parents and forced to have her baby adopted, Jeannie decides to volunteer for the Special Operatives Executive where she uses her fluent French as a wireless operator. She’s dropped into German-occupied France to help the Resistance and is eventually captured.
In 1962 Celia Duchesne learns of Jeannie’s existence and is puzzled why her parents never mentioned her sister. They refuse to talk so Celia decides to investigate secretly.
The bookstore in London where she works was recently taken over by an American divorcée. Over time Celia becomes suspicious about the mysterious messages that are being left for her employer and realises the shop is being used as an espionage network.
While Louise Fein’s previous bestseller, Daughter of the Reich, focused on WW2, this new offering is set around the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis with the world on a knife edge and Cold War hostilities at fever pitch.
A dramatic, thoroughly absorbing read. – GERRY WALDEN
THE QUANTUM SOLUTION
By ERIC VAN LUSTBADER Bloomsbury
When an elite Russian scientist and the American secretary of defence die at the same time half a world apart from “explosions” in their brains, Evan Ryder and her partner, Ben Butler, get roped in to figure out what is going on. The race is on to find the killer behind this horrific weapon that could plunge the whole world into a catastrophic war.
Evan works for Parachute, a private company with tentacles in many defence businesses, the latest being the application of quantum technology. When it eventually transpires that the sudden deaths were caused by quantum time crystals, Evan suspects that the boss of Parachute, Marsden Tribe, might be behind the attacks.
The Quantum Solution is the fourth novel in the Evan Ryder series. The plot is fiendishly complicated and there are a lot of characters. The action – which is frenetic and non-stop – moves from Istanbul to Washington and Moscow and almost always Evan is at the heart of it. She’s one tough lady. Injuries that would kill Jack Reacher hardly cause her to break a sweat – it’s all very over the top.
Readers who despise Vladimir Putin will enjoy parts of this thriller, for although he’s never named, it’s abundantly clear who the author has in mind when he refers to Russia’s “sovereign” leader. – ANDRÉ J BRINK