Book #21 Corpus

Corpus by Rory Clements
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Corpus crackles with derring-do, constitutional crisis, conspiracy, Cambridge and a maverick history professor, in a rollocking tale set in 1936, peppered with Bolsheviks, British Communists, Fascists, Blackshirts and Falangists in a potpourri of skulduggery that reminded me of the exploits of Dick Barton (unless you are of a certain age you might have to Google him!) with a whiff of Richard Hannay (although he populated an earlier era).

It’s 1936 and Europe is in turmoil. King Edward VIII wants to marry a divorcee, Wallace Simpson but the machiavellian Stanley Baldwin is having none of it. He is insisting that Edward abdicates to make way for his brother, Albert. There are supporters for the king, who see nothing wrong with his nuptial intentions and those led by the prime minister, who view this as completely unacceptable. Meanwhile, the Nazis have marched into the Rhineland, Stalin continues his murderous campaign in Russia and Spain has erupted in Civil War.

What then of two English women who attend the Olympic Games in Berlin? One of them has a clandestine meeting with a Jewish scientist. Weeks later she is found dead in her Cambridge bedroom, a silver syringe clutched in her fingers. Following the horrific murders of a renowned member of the county set and his wife, our protagonist, Professor Thomas Wilde - a history master at Cambridge University - finds himself unwittingly dragged into a world of espionage. Are these deaths linked? Why does Wilde become involved? What does this have to do with the scandal surrounding the king and his mistress? Who is Lydia and what is her rôle in a conspiracy that could rock the nation?

Rory Clements cleverly intertwines actual historical events within a fictional plot that seethes with tension and suspense. Historical fiction, based on factual events, at its best. And Dick Barton would have made a great sidekick for Thomas Wilde….


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