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Recommendations based on Winter in Madridby C.J. Sansom
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Dominion
by C.J. Sansom
Historical mystery set in 15th century England, exploring themes of power, loyalty and redemption.
1952. Twelve years have passed since Churchill lost to the appeasers, and Britain surrendered to Nazi Germany after Dunkirk. As the long German war against Russia rages on in the east, the British ... (Goodreads)
Dissolution
by C.J. Sansom
A lawyer in Tudor England investigates a suspicious death, uncovering a vast conspiracy.
Henry VIII has ordered the dissolution of the monasteries and England is full of informers. At the monastery of Scarnsea, events have spiralled out of control with the murder of Commissioner Robin ... (Goodreads)
Heartstone
by C.J. Sansom
An historical mystery set in 1540s England, exploring the power of secrets and loyalty.
Summer, 1545. England is at war. Henry VIII's invasion of France has gone badly wrong. Meanwhile Matthew Shardlake is given an intriguing legal case by an old servant of Queen Catherine Parr. He is ... (Goodreads)
Birdsong: A Novel of Love and War
by Sebastian Faulks
A poignant love story set during World War I, exploring the impact of war on human relationships and the human psyche.
Birdsong has an episodic structure, and is split into seven sections which move between three different periods of time before, during and after the war in the Stephen Wraysford plot, and three ... (Wikipedia)
Sleepyhead
by Mark Billingham
A serial killer leaves his victims alive but unable to move or communicate. DI Thorne must race against time to catch him before he strikes again.
Detective Inspector Tom Thorne now knows that three murdered young women were a killer's mistakes – and that Alison was his triumph. And unless Thorne can enter the mind of a brilliant madman -- a ... (Goodreads)
Labyrinth
by Kate Mosse
A woman searches for the secrets of her past that are hidden in a mysterious ancient labyrinth.
When Dr Alice Tanner, who works as a volunteer at the archaeological site of Pic de Soularac, in France, discovers two skeletons in a long-hidden cave in the hillside, she unearths a link with an ... (Wikipedia)
Every Man Dies Alone
by Hans Fallada
A man and his wife struggle to resist Nazi oppression in 1940s Berlin.
Inspired by a true story, Hans Fallada's Alone in Berlin is the gripping tale of an ordinary man's determination to defy the tyranny of Nazi rule. This Penguin Classics edition contains an afterword ... (Goodreads)
Eye of the Needle
by Ken Follett
A thrilling tale of espionage and wartime romance, set in the chaos of WWII.
In 1940, Henry Faber, a German spy nicknamed 'die Nadel' ('The Needle') due to his trademark weapon being a stiletto , is working at a London railway depot, collecting information on troop movements. ... (Wikipedia)
The Angel's Game
by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
A writer's journey through a supernatural world of secrets and lies.
The Angel's Game is set in Barcelona in the 1920s and 1930s and follows a young writer, David Martin. In a once-abandoned mansion at the heart of Barcelona, Martín makes his living by writing ... (Wikipedia)
The Day of the Jackal
by Frederick Forsyth
An assassin attempts to kill the president of France in a thrilling race against time.
The book begins in 1962 with the (historical) failed attempt on de Gaulle 's life plotted by, among others, Lieutenant-Colonel Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry in the Paris suburb of Petit-Clamart : ... (Wikipedia)
The 39 Steps
by John Buchan
An ordinary man is framed for murder and must go on the run from the police to clear his name.
In May of 1914, war looms in Europe. Richard Hannay returns home to London after living in Rhodesia . One night his neighbour, an American who claims to be in fear for his life, visits Hannay. The ... (Wikipedia)
And the Mountains Echoed
by Khaled Hosseini
Interconnected stories of family and love, tracing the consequences of decisions made throughout life.
The novel opens in the year 1952. Saboor, an impoverished farmer from the fictional village of Shadbagh, decides to sell his three-year-old daughter Pari to a wealthy, childless couple in Kabul. ... (Wikipedia)
Suite Française
by Irène Némirovsky
A story of love and loss set against the backdrop of Nazi-occupied France.
The first two stories of a masterwork once thought lost, written by a pre-WWII bestselling author who was deported to Auschwitz and died before her work could be completed. By the early l940s, when ... (Goodreads)
Fatherland
by Robert Harris
A thriller set in an alternate history of Nazi Germany, where secrets of the past are uncovered.
The novel opens in Nazi Germany in April 1964 during the week leading up to Adolf Hitler 's ,[note 1], 75th birthday. Detective Xavier March is an investigator working for the Kriminalpolizei ( Kripo ... (Wikipedia)
The Secret Keeper
by Kate Morton
A woman unravels her family's past, uncovering secrets and lies that span generations.
During a summer party at the family farm in the English countryside, sixteen-year-old Laurel Nicolson has escaped to her childhood tree house and is happily dreaming of the future. She spies a ... (Goodreads)
Perfect
by Rachel Joyce
A man's quest to find his long-lost brother and uncover the truth of his past.
In 1972, two seconds were added to time. It was in order to balance clock time with the movement of the earth. Byron Hemming knew this because James Lowe had told him and James was the cleverest boy ... (Goodreads)
The Beach
by Alex Garland
A young backpacker discovers a hidden beach paradise in Thailand, but the utopia is not as perfect as it seems.
In a cheap hotel on Khao San Road in Bangkok , Richard, a young British backpacker, meets a mentally disturbed Scot going by the alias of Daffy Duck , who gives him a hand-drawn map with directions ... (Wikipedia)
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
by David Mitchell
An epic tale of love and adventure set in an 18th century Japanese trading port.
The novel begins in the summer of 1799 at the Dutch East India Company trading post Dejima in the harbor of Nagasaki . It tells the story of a Dutch trader's love for a Japanese midwife who is ... (Wikipedia)
The Child in Time
by Ian McEwan
A father's struggle to come to terms with the sudden disappearance of his daughter.
Stephen Lewis is, by his own admission, an accidental author of children's books. One Saturday, on a routine visit to the supermarket, during a momentary distraction, he loses his only daughter, ... (Wikipedia)
The Woman in White
by Wilkie Collins
A thrilling mystery of secrets and hidden identities, with a hero on a quest for the truth.
Walter Hartright, a young art teacher, encounters and gives directions to a mysterious and distressed woman dressed entirely in white, lost in London; he is later informed by policemen that she has ... (Wikipedia)
The Secret History
by Donna Tartt
A small group of misfit college students uncover a sinister secret and their lives become entangled with dangerous consequences.
Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the ... (Goodreads)
Half of a Yellow Sun
by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Story of two sisters navigating a civil war in Nigeria, and the effects of colonialism.
The novel takes place in Nigeria prior to and during the Nigerian Civil War (1967–70). The effect of the war is shown through the relationships of five people's lives including the twin daughters of ... (Wikipedia)
When We Were Orphans
by Kazuo Ishiguro
A detective investigates the mysterious disappearance of his parents, uncovering secrets of his past.
The novel is about an Englishman named Christopher Banks. His early childhood was lived in the Shanghai International Settlement in China in the early 1900s, until his father, an opium businessman, ... (Wikipedia)
The Shipping News
by Annie Proulx
A man's attempt to rebuild his life in a small Newfoundland town, discovering compassion and joy.
The story centers around Quoyle, a newspaper reporter from upstate New York , whose father had emigrated from Newfoundland . Shortly after his parents' joint suicide, Quoyle's unfaithful and abusive ... (Wikipedia)
Any Human Heart
by William Boyd
A man's life journey, chronicling his loves, losses, and adventures.
Logan Gonzago Mountstuart, writer, was born in 1906, and died of a heart attack on October 5, 1991, aged 85. William Boyd's novel Any Human Heart is his disjointed autobiography, a massive tome ... (Goodreads)
Winter of the World
by Ken Follett
Epic saga of war, family, and love during the tumultuous times of the 20th century.
The story follows characters from Germany , Britain , the United States and the Soviet Union , who become linked by events leading to World War II , and continues through the war and its immediate ... (Wikipedia)
Started Early, Took My Dog
by Kate Atkinson
Private investigator Tracy Waterhouse rescues a child and buys a dog, leading to a complex web of secrets and lies.
The main story takes place over a few days in present-day (2010) Leeds, England and vicinity. There are frequent flashbacks to 1975, when the mystery being investigated originated. ... (Wikipedia)
Restless
by William Boyd
A thrilling spy novel of international espionage, secrets, and espionage.
Eva, a young Russian woman, is recruited after her brother's death to work for the British secret service . During this time she falls for her mentor and boss, Lucas Romer. But all is not as it seems ... (Wikipedia)
The Secret Scripture
by Sebastian Barry
A woman's life story, told through her own words, as she reflects on her life journeys.
The main character is an old woman, Roseanne McNulty, who now resides in the Roscommon Regional Mental Hospital. Having been a patient for some fifty years or more, Roseanne decides to write an ... (Wikipedia)
The Last Days of Night
by Graham Moore
In 19th century New York City, a lawyer battles a powerful inventor in a fight over patents and the future of electricity.
NEW YORK TIMES, BESTSELLER • ,“A world of invention and skulduggery, populated by the likes of Edison, Westinghouse, and Tesla.”—Erik Larson, , ,“A model of superior historical fiction . . . an ... (Barnes & Noble)
