March | 2020 | Dorinda Balchin

A Treachery of Spies is an espionage thriller to rival the very best, a high stakes game of cat-and-mouse, played in the shadows, which will keep you guessing every step of the way.

A body has been found. The elderly victim’s identity has been cleverly obscured but one thing is clear: she has been killed in the manner of traitors to the Resistance in World War Two.

To find answers in the present, police inspector Inès Picaut must look to the past; to 1940s France, a time of sworn allegiances and broken promises, where the men and women of the Resistance fought for survival against Nazi invaders.

But, as Picaut soon discovers, there are those in the present whose futures depend on the past remaining buried, and who will kill to keep their secrets safe. Old fashioned espionage might be a thing of the past but treachery is as dangerous as ever.

A Treachery of Spies is a well-crafted fast-paced thriller. Much of the novel focusses on the exploits of a number of agents in France – French, English, and American – and their efforts to thwart the Nazis. Ms Scott writes with a clarity which opens up for us the supreme courage of the people who found themselves in such situations; she also describes in detail the time and place so that one can almost feel yourself there, struggling to survive in Occupied France.

As counter-point to this we have the 2018 investigation into the murder of an elderly woman which leads back to the individuals who had lived and fought beside each other in France without knowing that one amongst their number was a traitor. Who was the traitor? Why did they do it? And which, if any, of these old spies is responsible for the trail of death created to hide a dark secret…?

Ms Scott has conducted a great deal of research to provide authenticity to her story with many of her characters based on real people, from the infamous Klaus Barbie to the numerous agents whose biographies inspire many of the actions of the Resistance in her novel. Using the concept of a dual time-line the author is able, however, to take the actions of these agents one step further – how did the men and women of the SOE, the Maquis and the Jedburghs influence post-war spying and politics? What happened to many important Nazis who escaped at the end of the war, and what influence have they had in shaping the world in which we now live?

A Treachery Of Spies is a novel which will appeal to those interested in war stories, particularly the Second World War, and those who love a good thriller which keeps you guessing right to the end. If, like me, you enjoy both genres, then this book is for you.

A treachery of Spies can be found on Amazon

You can find out Manda Scott here

You can find more of my Recommended Reads here

In my previous article about the North Atlantic Convoys I mentioned the German battleship Tirpitz. This ship was over 250 metres long and weighed over 50,000 tons with a hull made of 30cm thick steel. Tirpitz also had not one but eight of the biggest naval guns ever built – 38cm. With a crew of over 2,600 men and a speed of 30 knots it was bigger and faster than any of the opposing Allied ships, a formidable weapon which instilled fear in all those who faced her. Yet this behemoth which could have played such a significant role in the war at sea was rarely out of coastal waters and contributed little to the German war effort.

One would have thought that Germany’s biggest warship should be deployed in the Atlantic but instead it was sent to a remote area in Northern Norway for one simple reason – the Arctic convoys which set out from Britain to supply the beleaguered Soviet Union. With the Tirpitz in northern waters Hitler hoped that he would be able to attack the convoys whilst at the same time preventing any Allied attack against Nazi-occupied Norway.

When the Tirpitz originally arrived in Norway in January1942 she was anchored in Trondheimsfjord from where she made an attack on the mining communities of Spitsbergen, the only major attack that the ship ever carried out. Then, in March 1943, her mooring was moved to Kåfjorden; with an approach to the fjord which was easy to defend and a greater distance by air from Britain the Tirpitz was well protected and able to continue to menace the convoys.

X-craft midgit submarine © IWM (A 22900)

Winston Churchill saw the Tirpitz as a direct threat to the success of the supply convoys to Russia and was determined to sink her. Kåfjorden was out of reach for the British bombers so the Allies decided to try an underwater attack using X-craft – 51ft long submarines with a diameter of just 5ft and with a four-man crew. The plan was for each submarine to drop two 1.5 ton charges of Amatex high explosive beneath the Tirpitz. This was not going to be an easy attack as anti-torpedo nets protected the ship but it was hoped that the midgit submarines would be able to get around these. Moonlit nights between the 20^th and 25^th September provided ideal conditions for an attack so six normal sized submarines towed the smaller X-craft close to the target where the operational crews then took over ready for the attack – two submarines targeting a small battleship called the Scharnhorst, one targeting a heavy cruiser called the Lutzow, and the final three making for the Tirpitz, although two of the attacking X-craft were lost en-route.

The Fleet Air Arm preparing for the attack on the TIRPITZ, April 1944 © IWM (TR 1812)

Although the raiders were able to plant explosives which tore an 18 meter long gash in the hull of the Tirpitz they were unable to sink the ship which was fully repaired by April 1944. Over the next seven months the Allies carried out six bombing aids on the Tirpitz which although unable to sink the ship did enough damage for her to be kept in port undergoing constant repairs. The Germans eventually moved the ship to Håkøybotn near Tromsø in October 1944 in the hope of getting better protection, but things went badly wrong for them on 12^th November that year when thirty-two Lancaster bombers attacked with Tallboy bombs weighing five-tons each and capable of piercing the thick armour of the Tirpitz. Following three direct hits the pride of the German fleet sank in only eleven minutes with the loss of between 1,000 and 1,200 men.

The Tirpitz was arguably the finest battleship of the Second World War yet she made very little contribution to the conflict. It is true that her presence in the Norwegian fjords was a constant threat to the Arctic Convoys but she did very little actual damage there. The Germans were not able to utilize the Tirpitz as much as they had hoped in Norwegian waters as there was a constant shortage of fuel. Neither was the ship deployed into the Atlantic where she could have created havoc amongst the convoys bringing food and supplies from America to the hungry and beleaguered United Kingdom. It is possible that the Tirpitz tied up men and resources which could have been used to better advantage elsewhere, indeed it could be argued that when all actions are taken into consideration the huge battleship which saw so little action was more of a hindrance than a help to the German war effort; it seems likely that the journalist Ludovic Kennedy was right when he wrote that the Tirpitz had “lived an invalid’s life and died a cripple’s death”.