Released: 28/02/2017
ISBN: 9781785899096
eISBN: 9781785897825
Format: Paperback/eBook
Working as a courier for an escape line over the Pyrenees early in the Second World War, Françoise is approached by the British Secret Service. Is what they propose – involving leaving her family and entering the lethal game of wartime espionage – reasonable for a young woman only two years after finishing her schooldays in Bordeaux?
This story is set during the Second World War and follows three remarkable, strong women – Françoise, and Justine and her sister Claudia. The action take place in many locations including London, Bordeaux, Vichy, Rome, Paris, Malta and Berlin. The major wartime issues of deportation of the Jews and the work of the Resistance are at the forefront of the story. The action stretches over several years and thus the novel is very ambitious, but the author presents us with a well-structured and fast-paced story.
The three women all become involved in secretive wartime activities. However, allegiances and love are tested and at various times all three of them find themselves on the run. The novel excellently portrays the tense atmosphere that was rife at the time when you didn’t know who you could trust. Betrayal could be only a moment away. People were driven to extreme acts for their country or to protect their family members, and our three heroines are no exception.
This is a fascinating book. The author has clearly done much painstaking research and we learn a great deal about how the secret services operated during the war, and the type of people who did this invaluable work. The characters are rounded and interesting, and we quickly become involved in their moral and physical struggles.
by Jane Oakley
A tense well written historical thriller. A page turner about the role women played during the war and the very important role they played in espionage. I really found this book an interesting exciting page turner.
by Rhonda Lomazow
David Longridge is a writer with a wealth of experience and success in the real world.
After school he worked for, and became, Chief Executive of Avis International, then second largest car rental company globally. That was followed by a long stint in investment banking in the City of London. On retirement, he decided to release his creativity by writing books that were fictional, but in an historical setting of a period he loved.
David lived and worked in Paris in the 1960's, including assignments to Algiers and the Sahara. "Fracture" is his fourth novel, in which he has woven his story around the real facts of what happened in France and Algeria when they separated. These were the most drastic times in French history. Times of total devastation, bombs in Paris, terrorism, espionage, betrayal, assassinations, fear, and brutal revenge on a scale unseen since the French Revolution of 1789. These are the locations and timeframe when the events in "Fracture" take place.
David has a strong interest in French political and military history, this being the foundation for the four novels he has written to date. He works from his home in Malmesbury, England, with his wife Anna who is a practising artist.
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