The Last Secret Agent – Pippa LaTour

I read this for a blog tour (link) and it’s memoir that reads like a thriller, it was so, so good. Compelling and shocking, moving and I really think Pippa LaTour is my new hero. Her early life was marked by tragedy, and yet she was so resilient. What she then went onto do in the war, dropping behind enemy lines, masquerading as a young French woman, ferreting out secrets and radioing them back to London, all while knowing she was on her own, that there was no back up, no rescue. Just inspiring. She kept the secrets, as she was required to by The Official Secrets Act, for years, letting her family think she was ordinary, but in this book, we finally all learn how truly extraordinary she really was.

The Winter Warriors – Olivier Norek
Another book about extraordinary people in extraordinary times. Before the Second World War, Russia had a go at invading its neighbour. Finland, and that was a big mistake. Finland might be much smaller, have fewer people and resources, but they are incredibly brave, tough and determined. This is a fictionalised version of real events and people, which again, I originally read for a blog tour, and which has stayed with me since.

The intense courage and honour shown by the young men who had to do the impossible and defend the border from the might of the Russian army, always hoping help was coming from their allies, but never having it arrive, is staggering. They were conscripts, farmers and carpenters, the most they used their guns for before this was hunting, and now they had to shoot their enemies in order to live. There were no reinforcements, just this small unit of young men and their insane, drunken commander. I couldn’t get to sleep the night I finished this, I couldn’t put it out of my mind.

The Whisper of Stars – Cristin Williams

Fiction, but once again, inspired by real events and people. In the far flung parts of Russia, where it is almost always cold and forgotten, there was a priory – a place of holy men and mystics, that became a prison, full of cruelty and evil.
There was a maze of sorts there too, and it held great secrets, and these are the secrets our young protagonists – both political prisoners in a regime that brooks no defiance, must unravel.
Haunting and beautiful, it’s not just the secrets of the island, but the secrets of Katya’s mother and of the bitter fight for political freedom they must understand. Another book  that has been living in my brain since I read it.

The Scapegoat – Lucy Hughes-Hallett

This has clearly been a year for biography and memoir – I’m normally a solid fiction reader, but so much that I’ve really enjoyed this year has been about real things. People, events, places, history.
The Scapegoat of the title is George Villiers, the first Duke of Buckingham, beloved of James VI & I and his son Charles I. Buckingham was involved in intense relationships with both men, possibly sexual (more likely with James than Charles as the father had a history of male favourites who were known to share his bed chamber) but definitely far closer than was wise, considering how unpopular it made him with the court, the Star Chamber and Parliament.
He was seen as an undue influence on both kings, agiatating for war with Spain or France or both, despite the outrageous amount it would cost and James’ policy of peace. Charles however didn’t share that policy and happily bankrupted the country for an unsuccessful series of military blunders.
Buckingham wasn’t executed but he was stripped of some of his power, and he was murdered. The ill feeling he created led to his death, and certainly set the path that would later lead to the Revolution and the death of a difficult king. This was really fascinating, when we studied the English Civil War, this part of it, how the seeds were sown in the reign of James in many ways, how wilful and spoilt Charles was, how little power anyone had to rein him in, except Buckingham, who could have been of use had he not been so determined to ignore everyone and exploit his connections. The relationships at the heart of government are explored so well, and at times the book is very funny. Not something I expected from a biography of a figure who loomed so large in his lifetime but has pretty much been relegated to a footnote in history.

The Josephine Tey series by Nicola Upson

This series has been around for a few years and yet somehow has only come to my attention recently (so many books, so little time to read them all) and I really like it. Upson has created a whole life for Tey (one of the pseudonyms of author Elizabeth Mackintosh) whose most famous book is probably The Daughter of Time. I’ve also bought a collection of Tey’s works so I can read the ones I don’t know and re-read those (Brat Farrar, The Franchise Affair, DofT) I do. Tey is a fascinating writer and here she’s brought to life assisting her close friend Archie Penrose, a Detective Inspector at Scotland Yard, in solving a series of crimes, that seem to occur whenever she leaves her native Inverness.
These crimes inspire her own crime novels, so there’s a lovely metatextuality here too. Tey’s books inspired Upson, so the fictional Tey is inspired within them. Something the total book nerd within me delights in.
They’re so well written and enjoyable too. Each one can be read as a standalone or you could read the whole series, in order, and the author’s notes direct you to the most relevant of Tey’s own books so you can read those too. Tey’s famous Inspector Grant and Archie certainly have plenty in common, which adds another lovely connection between the two series. Tey is something of a forgotten author in some ways, her name rarely appears on lists of crime writers, but I think she’s up there with Christie, Sayers, Marsh and the rest.