Of course, it would be wrong to pretend that The Best of Our Spies is anything other than a work of fiction, but I did go to some considerable extent to ensure that where the novel was obviously dealing with matters of fact, then it was as authentic as possible. Not only is it a sensitive one, still fresh in many people’s memory, but it is also a subject that many people know an awful lot about. This balance of fact and fiction is a tricky one, especially when dealing with a topic such as the Second World War. What I describe there did not actually happen, but like most of the book, it is a careful mixture of fact and fiction. Those two paragraphs summarise a substantial chunk of Chapter Four of my first novel, The Best of Our Spies. Once she could tell that it was safe, she crossed the road and entered the small park. Her destination was the narrow strip of park known as Twyford Gardens, which runs parallel to the northern side of Uxbridge Road. She turned right and, staying on the southern side of Uxbridge Road walked about four hundred yards in the direction of Acton. She was wearing a woollen scarf around her head and a raincoat described as being “closer to shabby than smart”.

Just before eleven o’clock in the morning of the first Sunday in May 1941, a French woman in her mid-twenties emerged from Ealing Common station. The characters were lively and the pace brilliantly maintained.” “A cracking read which reminded me of John Buchan’s The Thirty-Nine Steps. John Lee's superb narration of this compelling, fact-based WWII espionage story perfectly illustrates why he's a Golden Voice narrator.The Best of Our Spies By Alex Gerlis The Best of Our SpiesĮspionage,adventure,drama and love by local author Alex Gerlis Related Linksįormer BBC journalist turned author Alex GerlisĪ, and .uk With the help of the Resistance he finds Nathalie, but then the bitterness of war and its insatiable appetite for revenge catch up with them in dramatic fashion.īased on real events of the Second World War, The Best of Our Spies is a thrilling tale of international intrigue, love, deception, and espionage. Appalled but determined, Owen sets off on a perilous hunt through France in search of his wife. In London, her husband, Owen Quinn, an officer with Royal Navy Intelligence, discovers the truth about her role in the Allies' sophisticated deception at the heart of D-Day. In the Pas-de-Calais, Nathalie Mercier, a young British Special Operations executive secret agent working with the French Resistance, disappears.

France, July 1944: a month after the Allied landings in Normandy and the liberation of Europe is under way.

The Best of Our Spies by Alex Gerlis