C J Sansom is, of course, best known for his Matthew Shardlake series, set in Tudor London. In WINTER IN MADRID, he springs forward some three hundred years and proves that sixteenth century ecclesiastical struggles are not the only string to his bow.

The book is set in 1940, that year of terror, tension, and despair, when the armies of fascism seemed invincible, the Communist revolution was utterly betrayed by the Stalin-Hitler Pact, and the Battle of Britain as yet unresolved. Harry Brett, ex-public schoolboy and survivor of Dunkirk, is dispatched to Madrid ostensibly as a translator, but in fact to spy on his former schoolmate, Sandy Forsyth, who is involved in a shady gold-field development scheme that could tip the Franco regime's entrance into the war on the side of their old allies, the Nazis. Harry's masters, the real Sir Sam Hoare and Alan Hillgarth, act within the classic style of Empire political manipulation - tricky Great Gamesmanship, dedicated to producing the desired result while taking care not to threaten the conservative power structure. As he arrives in Madrid, Harry has no reason to question this approach. He is the product of a public school education that provided him with the sense of family and community that he, orphaned by the Great War and the Spanish flu, so desperately longed for. Rookwood promised him that its values and its codes would see him successfully through life, but Rookwood belongs to the world even before the Great War and is ill-suited to the shifting allegiances, ambiguities, and treacheries of 1940. It was not even strong enough to protect him against the psychic damage of Dunkirk.

Harry has been to Spain before. He first came in the nascent days of the Republic along with his schoolmate, Bernie Piper, and again, sadly, in 1937, at the behest of Bernie's parents, to try to find out what precisely had happened to Bernie, a volunteer for the International Brigade, following the Battle of the Jarama Valley. His search was unsuccessful and he had reluctantly to conclude that Bernie indeed had perished and been buried in an unmarked grave. Going about his assigned mission, he meets Sandy socially and finds him living with Barbara Clare, an ex-Red Cross nurse and Bernie's former lover. Barbara is unreconciled to Bernie's death and is secretly engaged in a search she hopes will prove him still alive. And Harry will himself fall in love, with Sonia, a working-class Spanish woman and Republican, whose life and experiences will shake Harry's bland neutrality and sense of British superiority to their foundations

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Utrolig fasinerende og spennende bok, vanskelig å legge fra seg. Håper andre får glede av den.

Will be released again soon

CAUGHT IN TRONDHEIM

From the BC-bookshelf some days ago.

Fascinating story and captivating language. I sort of liked it.

Time to move on.

Have seen this at so many stores that I got curious.

Picked up at Cafe Gjest Baardsen (I think)