Books

  • Here is the UK cover of ‘The Nazi Ghost Train‘ which comes out next year. I love it! Thank you, Mirror Books. It’s an amazing true story of an act of resistance which saved the lives of hundreds of resisters, airmen and SOE agents. More about the book here.

    Read more →

  • World War Two was the war in which old gender rules changed, as intelligence agencies created specific training and roles for women. SHADOW WARRIORS is the story of women as undercover combatants: armed with Sten guns and grenades; cutting telecommunication wires, laying mines in roadways; organizing bombing raids; preparing the way for the D-Day invasion

    Read more →

  • Arrived at a sheltered accommodation complex for older people yesterday. It was all a bit drab outside, but clean and brightly-painted in the hallways, and a very friendly resident who was returning with his food shopping helped me find the door number I was searching for. The one-bedroom flat was friendly, tidy and smart, apart

    Read more →

  • The accidental explorer

    Perce Blackborow is one of the most fascinating Antarctic explorers. An accidental hero. A stowaway who became a key part one of the great stories of survival… “If anyone has to be eaten, then you will be the first!” the expedition leader said. The words might have been a dark joke but, with what was about

    Read more →

  • Major new review of Defying Hitler in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, describing it as a “detailed new history of the people dedicated to stopping a fascist madman” which “sums it all up with an inventive weaving of key players and the steps they took to resist a monster.” Perry Munyon writes: “Drawing from the vast Nazi

    Read more →

  • Finally getting a chance to round up some of the reviews and responses to Defying Hitler. USA Today made it one of their Five Books Not To Miss, noting that Publishers Weekly says the book is “an informative counterpoint to accounts of widespread German complicity with the Holocaust.” And the New York Post marked it as one

    Read more →

  • The Story of the “Real McCoy”

      Writing Tom Sharkey’s biography meant we got to “meet” many of the great characters of old-time boxing. Sharkey wasn’t the only wild character among them. One of our favourites was “Kid” McCoy – real name Norman Selby – who faced Sharkey in January 1899 as a boyish-looking 26-year-old and had fast become one of

    Read more →

  • For those fascinated by this week’s tributes to Sophie Scholl, her brother Hans and Christoph Probst (all executed 76 years ago) this is the spot at which their fate was sealed. Sophie threw anti-Nazi leaflets from the balcony under the clock and into the hall below at Munich university. All these years later it is

    Read more →

  • Coming soon from Dutton Caliber in the US (published April 2019):An enthralling work of popular history that vividly resurrects the web of everyday Germans who resisted Nazi rule Nazi Germany is remembered as a nation of willing fanatics. But beneath the surface, countless ordinary, everyday Germans actively resisted Hitler. Some passed industrial secrets to Allied

    Read more →

  • Sgt Major Les Spence Les Spence was a remarkable man who kept an astonishing journal. For almost four years he risked his life to keep a daily record of hardship, courage and endurance in prison camps run by the Japanese. He and his fellow prisoners faced starvation, disease and cruelty. They kept up their spirits

    Read more →