A Treachery of Spies – Manda Scott

I find it easy, when reviewing Manda Scott’s books, to run out of superlatives. I have never yet been disappointed in any of her body of work and if you are a fan of historical fiction and have not yet encountered her books, then don’t waste time here. Go buy one and get reading.

Three years ago, I read her book Into the Fire with raw, new interest, for she had turned from the milieu of ancient Rome and created a tale in a dual timeline that linked the campaigns of Jeanne d’Arc with a modern police procedural thriller. Into the Fire was my book of the year and I remember badgering her, asking when she was planning on a second book, and simultaneously wondering how on earth she could achieve such a thing.

Then, as something of a side-shot here, last year I read Kate Quinn’s vaunted and most excellent Alice Network, which was similarly my book of the year last year. That novel is a dual timeline work too, set in Post-war France and during the First World War and delving into the world of women spies.

So along comes A Treachery of Spies. And, for me, though it’s only August, it seems clear this is going to be my book of this year. While the novel can be read as a standalone and is not reliant upon the reader having finished Into The Fire, it certainly adds something to have done so, for it explains in depth the motivations and history of the main modern character, Ines Picaud, and a few of her supporting cast. This is not a sequel to that book but more of a second tale, independent and glorious in its own right.

Treachery involves once more a police investigation in modern Orleans, this time into a mysterious death – the body of an old woman found in a car park with a very specific grouping of gunshots and post-mortem mutilation. And while the first book simultaneously led us around France in the retinue of the Maid of Orleans, this one delves into French resistance activity during the height of the Second World War. This, then, is the best of books for me, for it feels a little like what would happen if those two favourite books of mine had met.

The story is one of suspicion, betrayal, murder and espionage on a truly epic scale, telling the tale of spies trained by the British and dropped into France to aid the resistance, of their handlers, the intricacies of coded communications and the-so-called Jedburgh operatives sent over around the time of the invasion of Normandy to aid the resistance in their work. It is also the tale of Picaut’s investigation into an increasingly dangerous series of attacks that has a complex and hidden connection to the survivors of that world of wartime horror. One central theme that helps define the plot is that of revenge, combined with a strong sense of brother- and sisterhood. The heroes of wartime France form bonds that will last ’til death, no matter what the future holds, and similarly some actions leave a call for revenge that echoes through the years.

For the sake of avoiding spoilers, I won’t delve into plot specifics any further. What I will do is say that I cannot conceive of how Scott began to piece together this complex and twisting tale, and that when I read a novel with any kind of mystery element I constantly attempt to solve the puzzles as I go. Sometimes I unwrap the plot early. Sometimes I manage parts of it. With this book, I remained uncertain to the very end, and even the one thing I did anticipate I constantly found myself doubting. That is a good sign for a thriller in my opinion.

Scott continues her excellent portrayal of the world of modern French policing, but here she also shows a great understanding of the world of wartime espionage and of occupied France. The world she builds for the reader is flawless in its realism and vibrant and terrifying throughout. But despite a strong plot, beautiful prose and a vivid environment, for me it is her characters that stand out. From the beginning it seems we are focused on one historical character for point of view, but as the tale unfolds we are treated to more than one insight, and each character she builds for the reader is real and true.

And as the narrative moves to a close, we are introduced to a concept that is both chilling and horribly current and relevant. In this, I can only salute Scott. A Treachery of Spies is, then, a masterpiece, which is what I’ve come to expect from the author. The two problems she creates are: setting herself such a high bar to leap with her next book, and making me wait now before I get to read it.

Bravo. Treachery is out tomorrow. Pre-order it now or go out and buy it tomorrow.

Joan of Arc by Moya Longstaffe

Joan of Arc is one of those fascinating iconic figures that we are all drawn to: an underdog who stands her ground and defies the establishment. I have had a minor fascination with her since I was a kid, standing in Rouen and looking up at the tower that bears her name, or looking at the horseshoe she reputedly nailed to the door of a church in Chablis.

That being the case, this was guaranteed to be an interesting book for me. But it was so much more than I expected. I should have noticed the clue in the title. Joan of Arc and the Great pity of the land of France. This is more than just a biography of the maid of Orleans (it is that too, and it’s a good one, but she’s been dealt with often.) What this really excels at is putting Joan in the historical and political context.

I expected to belt through the first few chapters that were essentially scene-setting. Mistake. Partially due to the fascination of the subject, and partially due to the way Longstaffe puts it over, I as dragged deep into the text on every page, always learning, always fascinated. The mad king of France in particular impressed me. By the time we started to learn about Joan, it was extremely easy to see how the Franco-English situation had created the perfect world for such events, and how she fitted into it.

The portrayal of Joan and the examination of her life and events that follows is detailed without being a slog, colourful, interesting, and above all objective. In fairness, I’ve read other biographies and seen documentaries and films, so little was truly new for me, though there was some deeper investigation into some of the more obscure angles. It was a good, solid biography though, as I said before, made far superior by the context into which it fit.

The last third of the entire book deals with her capture, trial, execution and the ongoing story. This was nice. All too often a book on Jeanne skips the preamble and the later moves. Often they rush to Joan believing she was given a task by god so they can trawl through the military and political manoeuvrings that constituted her life and works, and then pretty much end with the gruesome burning. Not this book. Just as it sets the scene and then places Joan in it, it slowly, methodically, and very thoroughly, wraps it all up. we are treated to an in-depth investigation into her trial and then tantalising ideas of what it meant for the future.

All in all, this was an excellent biography. Not necessarily new ground, but examined in a new way for me, and made richer and more meaningful in doing so. I heartily recommend it not just for research but also simply for the joy of learning. A lovely read.

Into The Fire

Anyone who caught my blog post on Monday would probably have realised then what a glowing review this book was lined up to get. From near the start I knew it was destined for my annual top 10, and by half way through it had solidly claimed the #1 spot of anything I’d read this year (against some pretty stiff opposition too!) And basically any novel I read between now and New Year is really going to have to go some to challenge this one.

So now: how to go about reviewing Into The Fire without risking spoilers. I will do it.

And for that I’ll tackle the plot first.

In an unusual treat, this novel is written in two timelines, with two interlinked stories that run concurrently throughout the book. Orleans in 2014 is the setting for an investigation into murder and arson, compounded with political intrigues leading up to an important election, strained relationships in and out of work, shadows of the past that are long and all-consuming and racial/religious tensions. Capitaine Inès Picaut really has her work cut out fighting the clock to solve her case in the midst of media frenzy, hampered by some vivid and truly believable characters. And at the root of much of this trouble there are threads suggesting a connection to events some six centuries earlier. Cue plotline 1, which takes place in 1429, following the rise of the girl who became a saint – Jehanne d’Arc. The story is not told from her perspective, though, as she begins to turn the tide against the English in the Hundred Years’ War only to fall foul of her own success and betrayal and jealously among her countrymen, quite aside from the many enemies of France who want to see her destroyed. The protagonist for this timeline is Tod Rustbeard, a Scottish/French spy working for the powerful Duke of Bedford, and it is fascinating to watch how Tod (Tomas) grows and changes throughout the three years of his story. And as the novel progresses, there is never any doubt that how the Maid of Orleans’ story ends will have deep and far reaching effects on Capitaine Picaut’s investigation.

I will tell you no more of the plot. I won’t spoil it for you. I can only suggest with every ounce of my being that you buy the book and read it at your earliest opportunity.

In terms of language, tense and person in a book can change the entire feel of the story for me. I am always comfortable with the familiar and most common third person perfect tense (eg ‘Manda Scott wrote an excellent book’) and have recently become quite a devotee of first person perfect (‘I read an excellent book’.) I still have trouble with first person present, which I come across occasionally (‘I reach out and grasp the book’) which I find makes for hard reading and unnecessary concentration on text rather than content. Into The Fire is written (unusually in my experience) in third person present tense (‘John sells a book’.) For maybe a chapter or two I found I had to adjust to this style, and worried that it would make the book a rather involved read. I was wrong. In fact, it became very familiar and comfortable as a style, and because of the tense, lent the story a directness and immediacy that would have been missing in a perfect tense. So bravo for that, Manda. The tension of the medieval espionage and of the contemporary police thriller are jacked up a notch just through the decision to write in this manner.

Interestingly, while the story of Jehanne d’Arc ranges across medieval France in line with historical events, the modern thriller takes place in a remarkably small area, rarely leaving Orleans and even then not travelling far. This means that while we are treated to the exotic glory of some of France’s most impressive locations, we get to know Orleans well, from its physical geography to its people, its organisations and even its media and its crime. There is definitely something to be said for thoroughly exploring a location in text rather than ranging far and wide, and the detail of modern Orleans adds to the realism and the credibility of the plot.

The characters I have already touched on to some extent, but they deserve their own mention. Every character is realistic. I mean right down to the faceless ones, let alone those with a speaking part. The main characters (Cpt Picaut and Tod Rustbeard) are as deep and well constructed as any character I’ve read (precisely what I’d expect from the writer who brought us Pantera in the Rome series. The former is a thoughtful, intelligent and strong police officer, who is not without her faults, of course, with plenty of demons in her past who influence her present in so many ways. The latter, I thought initially to be a fairly brash and unlikeable man, but who quickly develops to be far, far more and so much deeper, himself living with a past that has left marks on his soul. To some extent, I found myself hoping for redemption and success on Rustbeard’s part from a fairly early stage. The supporting cast too are well-written and credible. From the fascinating Patrice – the police’s pet technology genius – to the captain’s estranged and soon-to-be-ex husband, Luc and his inscrutable sister Lise, to the leader of an Algerian crime family, and so many more, the contemporary cast are individual and memorable. And from the Maid of Orleans herself, through her own captains, the King’s captivating sister, the Duke of Bedford and the almost-nobodies in the Maid’s army and entourage upon whom Rustbeard’s mission is reliant, the historical cast is intriguing and strong, vividly portrayed and bring that period of history to life.

On a last note about Manda’s work here, it is abundantly clear just how much effort the author has put into the research behind this tale, both in terms of the history and legend of Joan of Arc, and in terms of modern Orleans, French culture and the police work that form the backbone of the plot. Of course, Manda cut her teeth on thrillers before moving into the realm of historical fiction and the ease with which she has combined the two genres to create something special is fascinating. But I challenge you to find a detail out of place or anything that is not perfectly in place in the tale and its prose. Until I had the opportunity last weekend to pose a few questions to the author – even while I was 2/3 of the way through the book – I was under the impression that Into The Fire was a standalone work. I am overjoyed to now know that this is not the case and that a follow up under the current title of Accidental Gods is in the works. I simply cannot wait for that.

So for those of you who’ve not read Manda’s new book, I cannot recommend it highly enough. Six stars out of five. Go buy it, people.

And for the giveaway I ran in my last blog entry, the winner of a signed copy is Ian Robinson, so congrats Ian. Get in touch with an address and thank you.

Maid of Orleans

Something slightly different for you today.

I am currently engrossed in Manda Scott’s latest opus – Into The Fire – and will be posting my review of it on Thursday in my usual scheduled slot, so look out for that. But in the meantime, I have been so utterly enthralled by the book that I felt perhaps it was time for another non-review post in between, about the character who is central to Manda’s new book: Jehanne d’Arc – a.k.a. Joan of Arc.

Furthermore, the lady herself (Manda, not Jehanne) has kindly answered a few questions I put to her and offered a signed copy of Into The Fire as a giveaway. So, when you’ve finished reading, please do comment on the post, and on Thursday when I release my review, I will randomly select one of those folk who commented on this and they will receive a signed copy of Into The Fire from Manda. And trust me, this is a giveaway you want to win, and a book you want to read. I am three quarters of the way through it myself, and it’s clearly going to be one my absolute top books of the year and, let’s face it, probably in the #1 spot.

(Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

So who was Jehanne d’Arc? Well I’m going to give you the sanitised potted historical version. If you really want to explore this question in depth, you need to read Manda’s book. As the legend goes, Jehanne was born in a village called Domremy, loyal French surrounded by Burgundian lands (who at the time sided with England rather than with France.) As a young girl she experienced a vision, in her father’s orchard, of the archangel Michael who told her it was her task to drive the English from France and see that the young Dauphin was crowned King. That was in 1425 when she was just twelve or thirteen years old. A few years passed and she begged to be allowed to visit the Dauphin’s court, but no one would believe her until she had a vision and detailed a French defeat before it had happened. That was in 1429, and consequently she was taken seriously and allowed to visit Chinon. The rest is history. In no time, this simple French maid was clad in plate, riding a charger and leading the French army into battle, beginning with the siege of Orleans.

(Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

As I said, if you want to dig a little deeper into who the Maid of Orleans really was, then Into The Fire is the book for you.

So what was happening between France, England and Burgundy, then? Well, it’s important to remember that at this time France as the nation we understand did not exist. Much of it was either subject to the English crown and had been since William the Bastard had come over from Normandy, or was part of one independent duchy or another. In fact the lands that the French king could call his own were at best half of what we now think of as France, mostly south central and southeast. The English crown had laid claim to all French lands for as long as anyone could remember and by 1429 had spent almost a century trying to conquer them. The French house of Valois was rather beleaguered, for the powerful Duchy of Burgundy, who were a branch of that same family, were at loggerheads with the French Dauphin over succession and therefore sided with England. Moreover, other powerful duchies in the north, such as Hainault and Flanders, had joined the English against France. Despite Scottish alliance and various other foreign supporters, France was in 1429 looking down the barrel of the gun, so to speak. And into the mess steps the maid from Domremy, with God on her side and a vision of a victorious France ruled by a king anointed in the ancient manner.

Photo courtesy of me, in Rheims 2012

And how did it end? Well again, I’m not going to throw any spoilers at those of you who don’t know the history. But it is a tale of ignominious capture, heroic resistance, political manoeuvering and religious trial. Bear in mind that this is the same era of history that saw the Knights Templar under de Molay tortured and executed for heresy. You can imagine how the misogynistic authorities in the 15th century might view a girl who led armies and defied kings. But like so many larger-than-life figures throughout history, while Jehanne’s death may have signalled the end of that particularly glorious summer for France, it guaranteed her a place in world history. For who can forget Joan of Arc, the maid of Orleans? And Jehanne forms the core of Into The Fire, which is a novel written in dual timelines, set in France in 1429 and in Orleans specifically in 2014. Investigation, arson, murder and political shenanigans form a modern tale that interweaves with the story of the Maid.

(Photo of Rouen’s Tour Jeanne d’Arc courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

* * *

So, bearing in mind that I have not yet quite finished the book when I posed these questions to Manda, there follows a short Q&A with the talented lady herself.

* * *

Simon: Every nation seems to have its one folk hero. In England it is Robin Hood, in Scotland The Bruce, Romania has Vlad Dracula, while Germany has Arminius. The USA has Washington and Spain has Rodrigo Diaz (El Cid). France, interestingly, could easily claim at least two equally notable and equally romantic figures in that role. Most notably, given the general misogynistic tendencies of the ancient world right through to the 20th century, do you think it is Jehanne d’Arc’s gender that sets her apart and has made her more noticeable and more beloved than, perhaps, Vercingetorix, who had struggled with a very similar fight to throw out an invader some fifteen centuries earlier?

Manda: That’s a really interesting duo.  Because I’m currently immersed in WWII,I’d be inclined to add Jean Moulin and Pierre Brossolette to the list – and definitely Violet Szabo, she was extraordinary and the recent newspaper reports of her medals being sold gave the highly sanitised version of her death.  But that’s a whole separate discussion. 

I think Jehanne was set apart for a number of reasons and definitely the kind of ingrained misogyny that says a woman can’t be a knight, and can’t fight, can’t lead men, can’t be a warrior… this definitely contributed both to her failure at the time to win over the French Court (she had her ardent admirers, but those closest to the man she made king loathed her and contributed materially to her downfall) and then to the shaping of the narrative afterwards.  Because she was a woman, she had to be tried as a heretic, not as an enemy combatant.  Because the rules for detecting heresy were remarkably well described, not to say proscribed, they had to question her endlessly on the nature of her ‘counsel’ and not on her martial skills.  They also had regularly to verify her virginity because  it was a well known ‘fact’ that the devil could not consort with a virgin and this closed off one of their avenues of legal attack.  The whole thing was a pantomime, edging around the fact that she was a woman doing things that their narrative of the world said were impossible: none of it would have happened if she were a man.  

And so the myth was set – aided and abetted by those around the French court who had no greater reason to like her than did the English – and it has carried on down half a millennium to the 1920s when she was canonised, not for her martial skill or her rescue of France, but for her (imagined) piety – a detail which doesn’t stand up to the facts on the ground – and her ‘martyrdom’ which is one of those ghastly tropes that says if you die horribly, we’ll all love you for it afterwards.  And now, in the twenty first century, she’s a repository for the projections of the extreme right (perfect woman: virginal, pious, republican) and the extreme left for whom she’s a gender-bending feminist anti-christian shaman, none of which is true either (tho’ she did wear boy’s clothes and really didn’t want to give them up, which in those days, was a form of transvestitism that saw her burned, so perhaps the first of these might be true. I don’t think she was making political points, though. She was being practical). 

So: she was successful, where Vercingetorix wasn’t. She was fighting the English, who are still a fairly unpopular group in parts of France, whereas the Romans are universally admired… and the early spin means that people can project all they want on to her – and do – which is harder with a tribal chieftain who was kept seven years in a pit and then strangled in public on the orders of Julius Caesar.  All of which makes her an easy target for people who want to create saints. 

Simon: I know that you visited sites in France connected with the Maid of Orleans in research for this novel. I remember myself standing in Rouen where she met her end, as well as various other sites – the old market of Troyes, the church at Chablis, where one of her horseshoes is reputedly nailed to the door, and so on. And even now, many years on, I can remember the atmosphere redolent in such places. I remember being entranced by it even as a young man. Into The Fire is almost flooded with atmosphere, and puts me in mid of those sites even as I read. How much has visiting the appropriate places coloured your impress and descriptions of them in the book?

Manda: Definitely visiting Orléans made a huge impression on me – in fact, the whole of the Loire valley Jargeau, Meung-sur-Loire, Chinon, Blois… they’re all fascinating places. They’ve changed, obviously but the whole geography of the place and the relationship of the towns to the river is central to understanding the brilliance of her brief military campaign there.  And then the basilica at Cléray-Saint-André was very central to the contemporary thread of the narrative, so seeing that helped me to shape the parts of the action that needed to be there.  I never went to Rouen, I couldn’t face it.  – Rank cowardice on my part, but I studied the pictures and watched some videos and that was quite enough.  In a broader sense, though, seeing the remnants of the old town in Orléans, being places that are at least broadly similar did make a huge difference to gaining a feel of who she was. 

Simon: Jehanne has been the subject of a number of works of literature and cinema – those connected with William Shakespeare, Milla Jovovich, Ingrid Bergman and Mark Twain are just the more memorable. Given how unlikely it is that you have never read or seen such works, and given how iconic the Maid’s chastity and piety are, how hard was it to break the chains of common conception and build your own Joan in defiance of such works?

Manda: George Bernard Shaw, Vita Sackville West, Mark Twain… and yes, all the rest.  The amazing thing is, that until I read VSW’s biography, I’d never read anything more detailed than the Ladybird Book of Joan of Arc that I had in my collection when I was a kid (embarrassingly, my only real knowledge of Richard I comes from the same source – a Ladybird book. I really need to expand my reading).  What I gleaned from that was a story of a young woman so devoted to her imaginary friend in the sky that she was set as a figure head at the front of the troops while the men got on with the real work and was then burned for her trouble, and oddly enough (or not, if you’ve read anything else I’ve written), that held no interest for me at all.  I didn’t want to read anything else, watch any of the films, or see any of the plays.   It was only when I read an article that began to point me to the great gaping gaps in the accepted narrative that she became interesting as a person and then I didn’t want to read anyone else’s fictional account because I wanted to find her for myself.  So breaking the chains of common conception is the point of a lot of what I write – the world is no always how we’ve been told and I want at least to hold up the known detail and stare at it and let people see the gaps. If they work a different ‘best fit’ to fill them, that’s fine, but at least we don’t have to keep swallowing the nonsense that suited – and still suits – those who’d rather we didn’t question reality too closely. 

Simon: Into The Fire is written in two separate, yet concurrent timelines, which must be mind-numbing to keep together in terms of continuity and plot. Moreover, they are both set in France in different eras, requiring the novel to be written from a point of view that is truly Gallocentric. Was it difficult to cast aside your Britishness and look at the English as both a militaristic invader and a modern foreign nation, depending upon the timeframe? I note with interest, given your Scottish roots, the ready inclusion of the Auld Alliance in the earlier timeframe, which is historical record, but also feeds your plot perfectly.

Manda: You hit this one on the head. I am a Scot and unless you’ve been raised in Scotland, it’s hard to explain exactly the degree to which England is still the enemy. My father was a true blue Thatcher-loving Tory, but still, every single day as he drove us the 45 minutes from our tiny rural village into school in Glasgow, he told us the stories of our ancestors – the men who had fought and died at Flooded, at Bannockburn, at all the other hundreds of times when the Scotts were (notionally) on the Scottish side and the English were the bad guys. There was a Covenanter’s hill above the village I grew up in and we knew its history, and that of Glasgow when we knew nothing else.   I could sing Flower of Scotland (and still can, tho’ you wouldn’t want to hear it: I’m the world’s worst singer) and have never yet learned the words to the UK National Anthem. It’s an odd kind of double think because we know that England isn’t really the enemy. But equally we know that for a long time it was, that it could not be trusted and that France was our friend. And if I ever forgot, one of the first big historical series I ever read was Dorothy Dunnett’s Lymond series which is all Scotland and France. And then her amazing, glorious, much-overlooked King Hereafter, which is the true story of MacBeth as a Viking, and easily the best viking book ever written. 

So putting myself in the head of the French who had just lost Agincourt was easy after a childhood filled with moments when in my childhood imagination,  I had stood as a lone survivor after the defeat of Flodden or the victory of Bannockburn. And understanding civil war was easy after the many, many retellings of the treachery of the Campbells against the MacDonalds at the Massacre of Glencoe and the whole dreadful treachery that made James VI into James I and lost Scotland’s sovereignty.   The discovery of the plaque to the ‘Auld Alliance’ with the names of the Scots who fought for the freedom of Orléans was an immensely moving moment and helped to craft a substantial arm of the historical narrative. 

Simon: It’s an old favourite, I know, but I’m unapologetic. Given the sheer variety of eras and milieus that you take on in your writing, and that this seems to be a standalone novel, what’s next?

Manda: It *isn’t* a standalone novel!  I’m writing ACCIDENTAL GODS  – just passed the 110k mark of what will, I think, be around 180k – it continues the stories of the surviving key characters from the 2014 thread of INTO THE FIRE and the historical thread is supplied by their grandparents’ generation in WWII and beyond (I’m in 1956 now, briefly, having cruised through 1941 – 44 in England and France).  This is a completely fascinating period and one thing that rose to the top in all my reading was the difference between the Maquis and the Resistance, and the differing roles of the SOE in the rural areas rather than the cities where they have so often been depicted.  And then the Jedburghs fell from the sky: three man teams with two officers and a radio operative who dropped in uniform after D-Day and helped to co-ordinate the rural Maquis groups and make sure they were fighting the right war in the right place at the right time.  Eisenhower said afterwards they were the worth of 3 extra divisions and although there were some terrible mistakes (Vercours, for instance), there was some outstanding work done. More to the point, the US parts of these went on to form the nucleus of the newly formed CIA and spent the rest of their lives trying to do the same again in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq – and they’re doing it now in Syria, trying to arm the Kurds and train up local militias and they haven’t worked out that this was viable in France were the locals were white westerners living in a liberal (ish) democracy and it doesn’t necessarily work in the rest of the world. 

What I really want to look at is how we got from there – 1945 with Bletchley Park and all that it undoubtedly achieved – to 2015 and GCHQ/NSA and their avowed intention to collect everything about everyone and keep it forever. Particularly I want to look at the creation of STUXNET virus, and the blocking of the last round of the climate talks in Denmark.   The nature of democracy is changing. Accountability is growing more tenuous. It’s a very, very fertile area for a fiction writer to look at the way things are. 

All that’s left to say, then, is thank you to Manda for her generosity and time in answering my questions and in offering such a wonderful prize for one lucky reader. Get commenting for your chance to receive a signed copy of this most enthralling book, you lucky people.