NIGHTS OF LONG KNIVES

The day the UK 2010 election was called by PM Gordon Brown I received a postal package from the USA. It was an ARC of the second book in Rebecca Cantrell's Hannah Vogel series entitled A Night of Long Knives.

I was totally enthralled by the first book in the series A Trace of Smoke set in 1931 Berlin before the Nazi takeover.

"The geography, attitudes and corrupt feel of the city is described in meticulous and fascinating detail.....It is engrossing and absorbing but not always comfortable feeling...an outstanding book.

You can read the full review of A Trace of Smoke here.

Having been among the first to praise the book, I was very pleased to learn that Rebecca won the Bruce Alexander Memorial Historical Mystery Award for a mystery set before 1950. The award was given at the Left Coast Crime Convention in Los Angeles on 13 March, 2010.

A Night of Long Knives is set in 1934, a time of great turmoil in Nazi Germany. From the cover blurb: Journalist Hannah Vogel has vowed never again to set foot in Germany while the Nazis are still in power.....Hannah is asked to write about a zeppelin journey from South America to Switzerland-but Switzerland turns out to be too close.

This sounds intriguingly good and I will be reading and posting a review of A Night of Long Knives some time before the publication date on 22 June.

But before that after 6 May UK election day we will probably see some metaphorical long knives out among the politicians in the UK.