The Historians by Celia Ekback, TP $22.99

The last couple of years has seen an avalanche of books linked, however, tenuously to WWII. They have covered a wide range of topics and wide geographic areas. In Robert J. Harris’ The Thirty-One Kings, we saw the reappearance of Richard Hannay. The other Robert Harris wrote, V2, a about the development in Germany of a ballistic rocket that could travel from Germany to London in six minutes. There are also a number of series on the work women did during the war in England, for example Jenny Holmes has two series The Land Girls and The Spitfire Girls and there are others.

My book of the year, The Historians, is also connected to WWII. Sweden was officially neutral during the war, a position viewed with suspicion then and since by her Scandinavian neighbours who were invaded. The main character of this book, Laura Dahlgren, is in the Swedish Foreign service and part of the team that is constantly negotiating with Nazi Germany to maintain that neutrality. When Laura’s closest friend, Britta, from her student days at the University of Uppsala misses a meeting, Laura sets out to find out why? The search leads to the discovery of Britta’s murder.