BERLIN. JANUARY 1941. Evil cannot bring about good . . . After Germany's invasion of Poland, the world is holding its breath and hoping for peace. At home, the Nazi Party's hold on power is absolute. One freezing night, an SS doctor and his wife return from an evening mingling with their fellow Nazis at the concert hall. By the time the sun rises, the doctor will be lying lifeless in a pool of blood. Was it murder or suicide? Criminal Inspector Horst Schenke is told that under no circumstances should he investigate. The doctor's widow, however, is convinced her husband was the target of a hit. But why would anyone murder an apparently obscure doctor? Compelled to dig deeper, Schenke learns of the mysterious death of a child.…
"Simon Scarrow is a British author best known for his historical novels set in Ancient Rome. Dead of Night, in contrast, is a police procedural set in Berlin in 1941, under the Nazis. It’s the second in a series featuring Inspector Horst Schenke, who works for the Kriminalpolizei or Kripo (The first in the series was Blackout ). Schenke is not a Nazi, but works for a state run by the Nazis. I read the book shortly after it came out in February, and the creepiness of the atmosphere has stayed with me. I suppose it meets one of my criteria for a good crime novel—does it make me feel like I’ve been there? I also like the fact that American journalist William Shirer features in the book. (In real life Shirer lived in Berlin through 1940. His book, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich , is a great account of what it was actually like in Berlin under the Nazis). World War II historical novels on Five Books If you like police procedurals in a more conventional setting, another good one published in 2023 is The Broken Afternoon by Simon Mason . It’s set in Oxford and has two detectives with virtually the same name (but very different personalities) as the main protagonists: Ray Wilkins and Ryan Wilkins. This is the second book in the series, and opens with Ryan working as a security guard having been thrown out of Thames Valley Police. A child disappears from her nursery school, snatched away as her mum talks to one of the staff at pickup time."
