Synopsis
Abridged edition, narrated by Simon Russell Beale.
From the bestselling author of the Shardlake series, C. J. Sansom, comes Winter in Madrid, a standalone historical novel set in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War.
1940: The Spanish Civil War is over, and Madrid lies ruined, its people starving, while the Germans continue their relentless march through Europe. Britain now stands alone while General Franco considers whether to abandon neutrality and enter the war.
Into this uncertain world comes Harry Brett: a traumatized veteran of Dunkirk turned reluctant spy for the British Secret Service. Sent to gain the confidence of old school friend Sandy Forsyth, now a shady Madrid businessman, Harry finds himself involved in a dangerous game – and surrounded by memories.
Meanwhile Sandy's girlfriend, ex-Red Cross nurse Barbara Clare, is engaged on a secret mission of her own – to find her former lover Bernie Piper, a passionate Communist in the International Brigades, who vanished on the bloody battlefields of the Jarama.
In a vivid and haunting depiction of wartime Spain, Winter in Madrid by C.J. Sansom is an intimate and compelling tale which offers a remarkable sense of history unfolding, and the profound impact of impossible choices.
Details
16 March 2007
9780230531895Reviews
Sansom adroitly draws the disparate strands of his ambitious saga together. His non-pareil evocations of time and place anchor his characters with satisfying precision.
Few authors have the ability, or capacity for research, which allows them to capture the mood and atmosphere of a period in history, so when one does, and does it as well as C. J. Sansom in Winter in Madrid, then they deserve not only praise but success.
