The day we didn’t kill Hitler ...
MIDNIGHT IN BERLIN
by James MacManus
(Duckworth Overlook £16.99)
IN 1939, a plan to assassinate Hitler at his 50th birthday parade was submitted to the highest echelons of the British Establishment.
The British-led assassination would allow a German military coup to take out the Nazi regime. Rejected on the grounds that it would not be ‘sportsmanlike’ behaviour, this stillborn plot is the springboard for a rivetingly detailed novel about the diplomatic intrigues that went on behind the scenes.
Arriving in pre-war Berlin with his sexually adventurous wife Primrose, military attache Noel Macrae is highly intelligent, resourceful and an expert marksman.
Convinced the assassination is necessary, he takes dangerous risks to get it off the ground. Soon, he finds himself embattled with the British ambassador and falling in love with a beautiful Jewess who works in the brothel favoured by Nazi leader Reinhard Heydrich.
Even though the outcome is known, this is a cracking novel, which totally grips and left me thinking: if only.
THE QUEEN’S CHOICE
by Anne O’Brien
(Harlequin £12.99 )
MOTHER-OF-NINE and widow of John, Duke of Brittany, Joanna of Navarre is faced with a choice.
Henry of Lancaster, now King Henry IV of England, has proposed. Should she follow her heart and become England’s Queen? Or stay in Brittany and act as regent for her son?
Joanna marries Henry in 1403, but their affection (alluded to by contemporary observers) is severely tested.
Henry has deposed his cousin, Richard II, releasing a toxic mix of vendetta and hatred for generations to come.
Regarded as an untrustworthy foreigner, Joanna is plotted against and Henry’s illness, possibly psychosomatic but which kills him in the end, imposes strains on their relationship.
Very well written and researched with just the right amount of detail, this is a straightforward, high-quality historical novel that treats readers as grown-ups. THANKS to Homer’s Iliad, which gave us its battles and heroes to remember for all time, the story of the Trojan War is written into our cultural DNA. What Homer neglected, however, were the women — brave, seductive, resourceful fighters who were operating behind the scenes.
The first of a trilogy in which the feminist banner is raised, For The Most Beautiful concentrates on two of these women.
Krisayis is daughter of the Trojans’ High Priest and loved by the Trojan Prince, Troilus.
Briseis, princess of Pedasus, is married to Mynes, but ends up a slave to Achilles and falls in love with him.
The violent struggles during this epic historical event that decide the fates of these women are intensely described, and there is no doubting Hauser’s passionate involvement with, and knowledge of, her subject.
Her decision, however, to include sections with the capricious gods commenting on events is less successful.