#BlogTour ‘The Man In The Bunker’ by Rory Clements

About the book…

Germany, late summer 1945 – The war is over but the country is in ruins. Millions of refugees and holocaust survivors strive to rebuild their lives in displaced persons camps. Millions of German soldiers and SS men are held captive in primitive conditions in open-air detention centres. Everywhere, civilians are desperate for food and shelter. No one admits to having voted Nazi, yet many are unrepentant.

Adolf Hitler is said to have killed himself in his Berlin bunker. But no body was found – and many people believe he is alive. Newspapers are full of stories reporting sightings and theories. Even Stalin, whose own troops captured the bunker, has told President Truman he believes the former Führer is not dead. Day by day, American and British intelligence officers subject senior members of the Nazi regime to gruelling interrogation in their quest for their truth.

Enter Tom Wilde – the Cambridge professor and spy sent in to find out the truth…

Dramatic, intelligent, and brilliantly compelling, THE MAN IN THE BUNKER is Rory’s best WWII thriller yet – perfect for readers of Robert Harris, C J Sansom and Joseph Kanon.

My thanks to Tracy Fenton for the blogtour invite, and publishers Zaffre for my gifted review copy of ‘The Man In The Bunker’ which is out from 20th January.

This is not a genre with which I am overly familiar so I was thrilled and grateful for the opportunity to read this WW2 thriller and it was absolutely not a disappointment.

The central premise is that the human remains believed to be those of Hitler, were not. And in that one sentence, the entire post war society rests on a very thin precipice for peace and re-building of the world which has been lost.

For , if it was not Hitler, who was it?

And if he is alive, how did he escape, who helped him and how can he be tracked down?

This is exemplified in the very shocking opener where two seemingly random American soldiers run to help what appears to be an injured child, and do not survive the encounter.

Flash forward to an English landscape imbued with a semblance of hope-it is 1945 and there is the chance that those who were parachuted behind enemy lines, academics, spies and so forth , might be able to return to their previous existence. The aroma of hope is almost palpable.

Until these rumours surface. And whilst they circulate-and to an extent, still do-there is the potential for the rebuilding of the Third Reich, the creation of a future Nazi party and the gathering of evil forces. Hitler and his potential escape might be all that it takes to undo the previous years of death, destruction and pure evil.

it cannot be allowed to continue and needs quashing, and fast.

Enter Tom Wilde, Cambridge professor who,with the help of the fantastically named Mozes Heck, an American lieutenant. Both will be assigned to the US Counter Intelligence Corps, based in Garmish, Southern Germany.

Well they will, if they can get past the ferocious Lydia, Tom’s wife who is not best pleased that her husband who has finally returned to her, she can kick start her paused medical career and raise a family. I say this tongue in cheek because Tom and Lydia have massive ‘Tommy and Tuppence vibes. They would love a life where they can just be themselves, but the needs of their country and way of life (the democratic way of life) can only be more than mere wish fulfilment as long as the threat of evil is out there.

The twentieth century’s greatest boogeyman is out there, whether he really is or not may never be known. His actions haunt the textbooks of history and should never be forgotten or dismissed. He was emblematic of the evil which men (and women) are capable of and as such, should never be underestimated.

Some might say that in this age don’t we have enough to worry about without looking bacl at the past, even in a fictional manner?

I would answer that with a hearty ‘No’, because this is an excellent thriller which shows the lengths which people like Tom, Mozes and their like will go to to keep the world we want to live in safe.

And at a time where, quite honestly, I for one do not know who to believe on so many aspects of daily life, it is reassuring not to mention a comfort to read about real life events where , for , the good guys won. And continue to fight for that win.

About the author…

Rory Clements is the bestselling author of the Tom Wilde series of mid-20th century historical spy thrillers and the John Shakespeare series set in Elizabethan England.

He has won the Crime Writers’ Association Historical Fiction Award twice – in 2010 for Revenger and in 2018 for Nucleus.

He lives and works in an ancient farmhouse in quiet rural Norfolk, England

Links-http://www.roryclements.com/

Twitter @ZaffreBooks @Tr4cyF3nt0n