With respect to the audiobook edition, actor Adam Sims has been the narrator for all of the books to date in the Tom Wilde series as well as many other titles across a variety of genres. He has a pleasant husky voice that held my attention throughout and brought life to the novel’s various characters. The book takes us through a number of terrifying scenarios. It’s enough to make anyone applaud the bravery of those who risk their life for such situations, even if we’re also shaking our heads in sorrow at the brutality and callousness shown by some inherently selfish characters.

THE STORY: In the autumn of 1945, a Japanese submarine surfaces off the coast of England, unloads a lethal cargo, then blows itself to pieces. The Nazis are still active and have invaded Czechoslovakia. Meanwhile, the Jews are being persecuted so absolutely in Germany that parents are sending their kids to Britain on the Kindertransport to be safe. Meanwhile, the IRA’s S-plan bombing campaign has led to over a hundred terrorist outrages around England. Tom nearly died, motorbike accident and three men tried to kill him. He found a beaten up Liz and reunited her with her uncle. Rory was born in Dover, Kent, but says that he was raised in different outposts all over the world since his father was serving in the Royal Navy. The author says that he grew up ‘hungry’ to be a writer. He worked himself as a newspaper journalist, but even while doing that, he always had dreams of switching over to writing novels. He moved to Norfolk in 2007 and says that he found the ‘perfect’ spot to achieve his ambition of writing novels. He says that he has to have time and space to think, chat, and imagine. My thanks to Bonnier Books U.K. Zaffre for an eARC and to Bonnier U.K. Audio for a review copy of the unabridged audiobook edition, both via NetGalley, of ‘The English Führer’ by Rory Clements. The audiobook is narrated by Adam Sims.The other main characters are well portrayed. Wife Lydia is much more to the fore in this one as her determination sees her getting a place at medical school and her exploits along with roommate Miranda add a nice diversion and another thread to face imminent danger. Yes, yes, yes. Exactly right. This is what history teaches you. Work hard for your opinions, search, evaluate, criticise, look for more, ask who benefits, challenge every assumption. Do this every day. Not just what people are telling you, but WHY. Look beyond what you are given, seek what is being hidden. A Prince and a Spy (2021) – ​1942: The King’s brother, Prince George, Duke of Kent, is killed in a mysterious plane crash in the far north of Scotland. The official story is that it was an accident caused by pilot error, but not everyone is convinced. Cambridge spy Tom Wilde is sent north to investigate. What he discovers will have grave consequences for the entire world. What is to follow is a rollercoaster ride that will start in Berlin and will more or less end in and around Cambridge for Tom Wilde, Sunny Somerfeld and ten-year-old Klara, in an attempt to try and stay ahead from deadly enemies from Nazi Germany, and all along with Klara Wolf (Rieger) being used as a pawn in a devious deadly Nazi chess-game between on the one hand, Hermann Göring, and on the other, Martin Bormann, and each with their own agenda for power. Main character John Shakespeare is given both cases to solve. Mary, Queen of Scots, is scheduled for execution and the Spanish Armada is ready to strike. Traitors and enemies have their heads displayed on pikes high above the London Bridge. It is a time of peril for England, where chaos and fear threaten to reign. Shakespeare must go into an underworld that includes a strange array of people– including his brother Will, the struggling writer.

It is autumn 1945 and Cambridge history professor Tom Wilde, American citizen, has returned to his daytime job. The war is over. Or is it. ‘The English Führer,’ seventh in the Tom Wilde spy series by Rory Clements, hits the ground running as a Japanese submarine waits off the coast of Norfolk. Every book in the Tom Wilde series works as a standalone story, but the lives of the different characters evolve from one novel to the other. Storytelling is of an excellent quality, the atmosphere of post-wartime England in the Autumn of 1945 is wonderfully described and pictured by the author, and all figures are very believable and lifelike in their dealings with life in general, danger, political intrigue and death. Thomas Wilde is an American, and a History professor at Cambridge. He's focused on his students reaching their full potential, by questioning everything they come across. And he is determined not to let himself be swayed by any of the propaganda and the increasingly impassioned and volatile politics.

I must admit that I have been a fan of this series from the first book and whilst this is the fourth in the series it can easily be read as a stand-alone, it is a series that goes from strength to strength. So begins a cat and mouse chase with Bormanns henchmen not far behind and at times in front of Wilde and getting the girl out of Germany will only be half of the problems Tom will encounter. Nemesis (2019) – 1939 (August). As war looms, Cambridge professor Tom Wilde is enjoying a last holiday in France before the conflagration. But when a stranger informs him that a former student named Marcus Marfield is incarcerated in a French internment camp Wilde feels compelled to secure his release and return to England. Marfield, a brilliant chorister and history undergraduate had gone off to join the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War and was feared dead. But not everyone welcomes him home. As an international intrigue unwinds, the destiny of Europe and the world lies in the blood-stained hands of ruthless plotters. Only Wilde can destroy the conspiracy – but he finds himself in grave personal danger. Set in England, UK, between Cambridge and Norfolk in 1945. Rumours of a Nazi machine is still functioning, people are dying, due to a Japanese biological warfare research lab. Plotting on British land.. #fiction When a couple in society that have fascist leanings are found killed in a brutal fashion, Thomas Wilde comes into play. The Cambridge professor ends up getting drawn into a world of spying that he is only familiar with from the history books. The only thing is that the deeper Thomas Wilde gets into this situation, the more he is finding that links the murders of the couple with the girl who was found dead with the syringe in her hand, and to the scandal that is surrounding the Abdication.

Phenol. One gram - a tiny fraction of an ounce - into the bloodstream hits the central nervous system, causing cramping, spasms and sudden collapse. There wasn’t even evidence of a struggle.. No sign of a syringe.”June 1939. England is partying like there's no tomorrow . . . but the good times won't last. The Nazis have invaded Czechoslovakia, in Germany Jewish persecution is widespread and, closer to home, the IRA has embarked on a bombing campaign. As Rory Clements observes in his afterword to the book, ‘It is a world exhausted by war, desperate for peace – and extremely vulnerable because few have any appetite for further conflict’. This is the foundation upon which the author builds the compelling story at the heart of the book. It involves some extremely nasty goings-on, sadly based on fact. The author is the first to admit that he has a passion when it comes to thrillers. Rory says that he loves reading about men and women that face up to the ultimate test while they are under fire. This extends to enjoying writing about them, something that Rory chalks up to probably being in his blood. Tom Wilde is a professor (was a spy), in Cambridge. Rupert Weir is his old friend, he’s a police surgeon and wants to talk to Tom about his case. Europe is in turmoil. The Nazis have marched into the Rhineland. In Russia, Stalin has unleashed his Great Terror. Spain has erupted in civil war.In Berlin, a young Englishwoman evades the Gestapo to deliver vital papers to a Jewish scientist. Within weeks, she is found dead, a silver syringe clutched in her fingers.