Review by Bill Kirton
This is an
astonishing book. It’s a carefully crafted, beautifully written novel but, as I
read, I had to keep reminding myself of that fact because even its speculations
seem so authentic, so well supported by evidence. In its pages we find actual
historical figures, personages of the highest international stature, names sewn
into European and World history, but they’re not handled as icons (ugh! I hate
that word), respected statesmen, or even as the monsters their reputations made
of some of them. No, they’re people, important maybe, but all with their
motives, idiosyncrasies, agendas, and all part of the fabric of the story of
one of the most mysterious events of World War II, the strange flight of Rudolf
Hess to Scotland in 1941. Or was it
perhaps Alfred Horn?
The historical fact
of the flight, its potential significance and its long aftermath make it ripe
for conspiracy theorists. Hess was, after all, Hitler’s deputy and yet nothing
seemed to come of the flight. He was shuffled away to prison, then transferred
to Spandau in 1947 where he stayed, its only
inmate from 1966 onwards, until his ‘suicide’ in 1987, when he was 93 years old.
Everything about the Hess story poses question upon question and the refusal of
the UK authorities to release the relevant documents serves only to multiply
the suspicions that the truth has never been told. Jan Needle’s book is the
closest I’ve come to seeing all the events in a context which makes sense of
them. It also questions other ‘facts’ which have become part of the historical
record and yet don’t bear close scrutiny. Some of the great myths and heroes of
those awful days begin to look not only shabby but actually sinister.
But all this stress
on the ‘real’ subject matter is in danger of making it sound like a dry,
historical read. It’s not. Its sweep is indeed large, but its focus is tightly
held by the groups of individuals whose decisions and actions are behind the
whole adventure. Central to the narrative are two main figures. Bill Wiley is
distrustful of his masters in the SIS. He’s a flawed individual, something of a
womaniser with a sick wife and a young son whom he loves but whose very
existence makes Bill vulnerable. It’s through that vulnerability that he comes
to accept a part in an operation that will end in the ‘murder of a 93 year old
man’.
Then there’s Edward
Carrington, a clever linguist whose skills made him a target for the SIS during
WWII. He was persuaded to join the organisation as a spy and it’s through his
meetings, travels and actions that we gain access to the machinations of the
political (and royal) classes at the time and the elaborate structures behind
the Hess peace initiative.
Add to them the
killers who actually strangled the old man, the politicians engaged in their
own internal and external power struggles, and the gentle but brilliant
evocation of the various periods during which the action takes place, and you
have a complex, layered account of the macrocosm and microcosm of war and the
politics behind it.
This is writing
without stylistic flourishes and yet which has its own energy and
relentlessness as it uncovers layer after layer of the intrigues which combine
to activate the dramas. The author moves us smoothly between time frames,
making the 1940s feel as dynamic and immediate as the present, and deliberately
structuring his narratives to suggest the broader continuum of which the Hess
incident is simply one manifestation. The reverberations of some of the past
events continue to be felt and we need to deconstruct the foundations of some
of the myths into which we’ve bought so trustingly. This is about some
contemporary perceptions as well as about mid 19th century history.
In one of the reviews I read, the writer wondered where fiction ended and fact
began. Part of Jan Needle’s point is that so many of what we accept as ‘facts’
are fictions. The ‘truth’ of this novel is very persuasive.
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