Gothic, horror suspense set on a “God-Forgotten” island off SCOTLAND
WW2 Historical Fiction at its very best – SPAIN and GERMANY
12th December 2024
Dead Ground by Graham Hurley – WW2 historical fiction at it very best.
Dead Ground is the 9th book in Graham Hurley’s acclaimed The Spoils of War historical fiction series set around WW2. As ever it is a masterpiece of setting a work of fiction against a very real background. The stories many not be true, but they certainly could be.
It opens in 1936 when young Annie Wrenne is volunteering as a nurse with the anti fascist troops in the Spanish civil war. She has a disastrous affair with a wounded soldier and is ‘rescued’ by Carlos Ortega (‘El Diablo‘), a strange and complex man with connections to the Spanish underworld, the international press corps, and the world of spies In Madrid, Ortega introduces Annie to Tam Montcrieff, an MI5 Agent from London. She is recruited. Tam is in Madrid (capital of a neutral country, but increasingly aligned with Nazi Germany) to find out more about Germany’s intentions to mount an attack on Gibraltar by moving troops and guns from Northern Europe down through Spain. Meanwhile in Berlin, there is much infighting between the SS (and its leader ‘Onkel Heine‘, Heinrich Himmler) and the Abwehr (Germany’s Intelligence service). Montcrieff had once been arrested and tortured by the SS, and had good contacts in the Abwehr. Madrid is a bit like Berlin during the cold war – a hotbed of espionage and intrigue. Franco blows hot and cold on Hitler and Germany, and it is hard to ascertain exactly how far (and at what price) he will go to help with Hitler’s plans for Gibraltar. The task for Tam, and increasingly for Annie, is to use their networks to find out more.
Hitler meets with Franco – a frustrating get together for Hitler – in a train on the French / Spanish border, and Himmler is sent by Hitler to show his face in Madrid and to flatter his Spanish hosts. All of this activity is closely monitored by the British who are increasingly concerned about Gibraltar and the impact its potential loss could have on the war effort. A plot is formed to exploit the feud between the SS and the Abwehr and to remove the threat. But it is dangerous for both Ortega and Annie.
Dead Ground is a story that could very easily be true and that is its strength. It reads like non fiction.
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