May 1940. As the Nazis overrun Denmark, Britain counters by invading Iceland. Secret agent Daphne Devine is dropped into occupied territory to assess a clairvoyant in Reykjavik, who may be passing information to the enemy. Alone, Daphne must navigate her way through this strange, frozen landscape, where the Allies aren’t always welcomed with open arms.
When a new lead takes her North into Strandir, the land of sorcerers, she encounters fresh peril and discovers that now she, the hunter, has become the hunted. Daphne must use all her Secret Service training to outwit the enemy agents in her midst.
Twice shortlisted for a CWA Dagger, Syd Moore returns with a thrilling new series, exploring Britain’s secret wartime history.
SYD MOORE has been a Royal Literary Fund fellow and is currently working with them to pioneer ‘Reading Round’ courses in hospices. Her novel The Witching Hour was a Top Twenty bestselling horror title of 2024. She was the first Author in Residence for Essex Libraries and is best known for her Essex Witch Museum Mysteries, which was shortlisted for the Good Reader Holmes and Watson Award in 2018 and 2019. She has been shortlisted twice for a CWA dagger for her short stories. Syd founded the Essex Girls’ Liberation Front and successfully removed the term ‘Essex girl’ from the Oxford dictionary in 2020. She lives in Essex.
My thoughts: This was really interesting, I don’t remember learning about the occupation of Iceland during WW2, yet another thing school forgot to tell us!
Daphne has been sent north in the guise of a journalist for The Times, to write about the occupation and also about a medium who is making claims to be able to communicate with the dead – but might actually be communicating with the Nazis. He’s Icelandic and putting on performances in Reykjavik, making it easy for Daphne to observe him. Conveniently everyone speaks English, or she’d be in real trouble (a large percentage of the Icelandic population does speak some English) as none of her training covered learning the language.
She’s paired up with local journalist Anna as her guide and helper, although Anna doesn’t know everything. There’s also a grumpy British major who can’t really be bothered with Daphne and Septimus, who is supposed to be helping her too – but seems to be disinclined to listen.
Eventually she and Anna, and Anna’s police officer cousin, find themselves heading into the more remote north of the country on the trail of a book that Hitler wants. Out amid the falling snow, danger waits.
This was a really gripping, fascinating read. Daphne hasn’t really been prepared very well, she can’t speak or read Icelandic, her clothes aren’t really warm enough and at times she’s forced to improvise, even recruiting Anna and her cousin Rafn isn’t really something she should have done, but the men she’s reporting to don’t seem to be listening.
But her intelligence is good, she and Anna spot the secret messages the medium is passing on to someone in the audience, they analyse everything he says and does on stage, much more closely than most, and following an order from London, take a big risk with a big reward if they survive the weather and whoever is following them.
It’s a really clever, interesting and enjoyable book, I was hooked from the get go. You will be too.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
