This is my Dad. My Dad likes thrillers, spy novels and war stories. (He also likes books about dwarves and elves, but that's irrelevant for the purposes of this blog post.) When the very nice people at John Murray Publishers sent me a copy of THE INTERROGATOR by Andrew Williams (who is either from Edinburgh, or lives there - I cannot find a website, unfortunately) I took one look at the back and thought "My Dad would love this." It's set in 1941, and is partially about the cracking of the Enigma Code. My Dad was born in 1935 and in 1941 he lived about 8 miles away from Bletchley Park where the code was cracked."Donna," I said to myself. "What is it, now?" I answered, "You're always such a pest." "Alright, alright, no need to be quite so stroppy. I've got an idea that will mean you can do less work on this blog thing of yours." "Really?" I said, suddenly interested...
Anyway, I thought I would get my Dad to review the book, because he would do it far more justice than I would. This has, of course, left me in a bit of a pickle with my Mum. (That's my Mum, on the left. She wouldn't let me use a proper picture "I don't like being on blogs, you get all those funny people on blogs...What is a blog anyway?) "What about me?" she said. "Am I not good enough to review books?" Now, my Mum as a reviewer would also work well, since I enjoy dark, warped books with lots of swearing, violence and bodily fluids. And my Mum...well, she doesn't. At all. At Crimefest in Bristol she met the charming Chris Ewan. He was so charming that she bought one of his books. Well, she got my Dad to buy it for her. My Mum is like the Queen, she doesn't carry cash. After she'd read it she rang me up. "Our Donna, why can't you write nice books like that nice Chris Ewan?" she said. "He doesn't need all that swearing and not nice stuff you go in for." The subtext was "I wish that nice Chris Ewan was my daughter."
So, I decided that any nice books I get, I will send to my Mum to review. Any thriller-y, spy-y, war-y sort of stuff, I will send to my Dad. So here, without further ado (since there has been far too much ado already) is my Dad's review of Andrew Williams' THE INTERROGATOR.THE INTERROGATOR is part fictional, but based on facts about naval operations both at sea and on land. It tells the story of a naval interrogator questioning German submariners about their operations at sea, and whether the powers that be have knowledge of the codes in use by the British navy at that time. It also deals with the distrust of the so called intelligence forces, many of whom are based on actual people, though the story is fiction. The main character is of dual nationality, having a German Mother, and is not fully trusted by some of the people he works with. His friendship with some of the Germans grows, which also alienates some of his comrades, and he does maintain contact with them after hostilities have ceased.
A very enjoyable story, I was captivated from beginning to end. The heroes and villians were so lifelike, and in the end the villians turn out to be heroes, or so it seemed. I found it difficult to differentiate truth from fiction, as part of it was fact, the rest being of the author's imagination. The love interest part was believable as I understand this an acceptable part of life during wartime. Station X was mentioned a few times, a secret so well kept that it was not publicised until the 90s. Many residents of Bletchley were not aware that it existed until much later.
Thank you pater.
