BOOK OF THE WEEK

The Diamond Eye by Kate Quinn, Harper Collins, £14.99

Already a big player in historical fiction with bestsellers such as The Rose Code, Kate Quinn’s newest novel, The Diamond Eye, was highly anticipated. Once again, Quinn achieves a perfect marriage of fact and fiction, folding meticulous biographical research into an epic tale of love, loss, hope and heroes.

This novel is based on the extraordinary true story of Red Army sniper Lyudmila “Mila” Pavlichenko. When we meet Mila in Ukraine in 1937, she is a young single mother and a studious library researcher. But Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union brings a war to her doorstep and a rifle to her hands. By 1942, Mila is accredited with more than 300 Nazi kills and her new name is “Lady Death”. When news spreads of the war’s deadliest female sniper, Mila is forced to swap the front line for the centre stage on a goodwill tour of America. A natural introvert still healing from the physical and psychological fallout of her wartime experience, Mila struggles to come to terms with her new status as a national heroine. Hers is now a war of politics and propaganda. There is a whirlwind of speeches, handshakes and Hollywood stars. There is an unlikely, yet heart-warming, friendship with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. And there is a new foe, whose deadly intentions threaten more than simply Mila’s life.

Quinn knows how to manipulate pace, time and tension to create all the anticipation we would expect from a pacey thriller. And she knows how to pull off an explosive climax, with more than one twist in its tail. However, the action is interspersed with tender explorations of love, war and womanhood. Quinn celebrates Mila as “The mother and the

sniper both”, sidestepping stereotypes to explore the complex multiplicity of women’s roles during the war and beyond.

Sections dedicated to weaponry, battles, sieges and so forth are riveting. However, the narrative transcends fact and figure with its striking, and often lyrical, prose. As we follow Mila from the “noisy, happy clamour” of the beach with her friends, to a war that smells of “dense pine, tree sap… and gunsmoke”, the writing is rich in image and detail.

It is rare that I finish a novel and feel entertained and educated in equal measure. This is a page-turner no doubt, but it is also a stunningly in-depth and emotive introduction to the one and only Lady Death.