The Danger of Life by Ken Lussey
It is late 1942. Group Captain Robert Sutherland’s first week in charge of Military Intelligence 11’s operations in Scotland and northern England is not going smoothly. A murder at the Commando Basic Training Centre in the Highlands is being investigated by one of his teams, until events take an even darker turn that draws Bob in personally. He is also trying to discover who was behind an attempt to steal an advanced reconnaissance aircraft from a military airfield in Fife, an investigation made no easier by the perpetrator’s death.
The complication he could really live without comes via a telephone call from Monique Dubois in MI5. An operation she’s been running in Glasgow, without Bob or anyone else knowing, has gone badly wrong, and she wants him to intervene before it is entirely compromised.
The Danger of Life is a fast-paced thriller set in Scotland during the Second World War. It is Ken’s second novel to feature Bob Sutherland and Monique Dubois and picks up not long after the end of his first, Eyes Turned Skywards. The action moves back and forth across Scotland, with much of it set in Lochaber, where the present war intersects with another conflict that took place two centuries earlier: with deadly consequences.
Author Bio
Ken Lussey spent his first 17 years following his family - his father was a Royal Air Force navigator - around the world, a process that involved seven schools and a dozen different postal addresses. He went to Hull University in 1975, spending his time there meeting his wife Maureen, hitch-hiking around Great Britain, and doing just enough actual work to gain a reasonable degree in that most useful of subjects, philosophy. The next step seemed obvious. He researched and wrote A Hitch-Hiker's Guide to Great Britain, which was published by Penguin Books in 1983. An inexplicable regression into conformity saw him become a civil servant for the next couple of decades, during which time he fulfilled the long-held ambition of moving to Scotland. In more recent times he has helped Maureen establish the website Undiscovered Scotland as the ultimate online guide to Scotland. Eyes Turned Skywards is his first novel.
Buy Link
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07RSX5CZ5/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1
Review
I really enjoyed this book set in wartime Scotland. I loved reading about the places in which I live and seeing them through the historical lens that this book provides. It was a fast paced thriller, with multiple storylines that all came together in the end and gave a satisfying conclusion.
The characters were complex and nuanced enough to keep you wanting to know more about them. I especially enjoyed Bob and Madame Dubois as their shared history made for an entertaining read. I loved that they just quaffed champagne for no reason - my kind of people!
For me as a historian I like all the tiny bits of history that not everyone knows about. Now, I am definitely not a war buff either I prefer social history rather than military but it was interesting to know about the Belgian and Polish forces having their own units in the UK. I even started a conversation with my husband about Mosquito planes! This novel is extremely well researched and the author definitely knows their local and national history. It made for a compelling and authentic storyline.
The Danger of Life is a thrilling read and I hope you will go ahead and read it! I can see a series of these books being successful as the characters were what made it for me. They don’t even need to be set just in wartime either, military intelligence and investigative work is always needed. I look forward to seeing more of this writer.
