I just finished reading Blackout and All Clear by Connie Willis. Blackout and All Clear are time travel novels set in World War II.
Not wanting to leave the era yet, I looked up novels set in World War II. I found several novels but I really did not want to read something that would be extremely sad.
Then, I saw that Rhys Bowen has a series of novels with at least one of them set in England during WWII.
My mother and I love Rhys Bowen’s “Her Royal Spyness novels”, so I knew there was a good chance that I would enjoy her WWII novel.
Blackout, All Clear and In Farleigh Field go together well and I am glad that I ended up reading them in that order. All three books are about life and relationships during WWII and mention some of the same locations and historic figures, giving them a familiar feel.
While Blackout and All Clear by Connie Willis dealt mainly with the blitz in London and only touched on topics of espionage, In Farleigh Field by Rhys Bowen deals mainly with the subject of espionage.
The story takes you from London to Paris and back again as the main characters, Ben and Pamela, keep the difficult secret from their families and friends that they are secret government agents and together they work to foil a plot by the Nazi’s to kill high ranking officials in England.
Throughout the story you are kept guessing as to who the Nazi agents really are. Everyone is a suspect and could potentially have motive.
Depending on your view point, you could consider this novel to have a happy ending or bittersweet ending but I’m going to consider it a happy ending.
I definitely recommend this book.
According to an interview that I read with Rhy Bowen, she did leave enough open that she could come back and continue the story of Ben and Pamela, if she wanted to, but currently she does not have any plans to do so. However, even knowing this, I felt that Rhys tied everything up nicely and I did not feel that the story was in any way left hanging and “needed” to continue.
If you read In Farleigh Field by Rhys Bowen, please let me know how you liked it!
Cheers!
