Hello and welcome to my stop on the blog tour for The Man in the Bunker by Rory Clements (Book 6 in the Tom Wilde series). Thanks so much to Tracy Fenton of Compulsive Readers for the invite, and to Bonnier Zaffre for my lovely hardback copy. Before I share my review here’s what the book is all about:

cover240682-medium“Germany, late summer 1945 – The war is over but the country is in ruins. Millions of refugees and holocaust survivors strive to rebuild their lives in displaced persons camps. Millions of German soldiers and SS men are held captive in primitive conditions in open-air detention centres. Everywhere, civilians are desperate for food and shelter. No one admits to having voted Nazi, yet many are unrepentant. Adolf Hitler is said to have killed himself in his Berlin bunker. But no body was found – and many people believe he is alive. Newspapers are full of stories reporting sightings and theories. Even Stalin, whose own troops captured the bunker, has told President Truman he believes the former Führer is not dead. Day by day, American and British intelligence officers subject senior members of the Nazi regime to gruelling interrogation in their quest for their truth. Enter Tom Wilde – the Cambridge professor and spy sent in to find out the truth…
Dramatic, intelligent, and brilliantly compelling, THE MAN IN THE BUNKER is Rory’s best WWII thriller yet – perfect for readers of Robert Harris, C J Sansom and Joseph Kanon.”

Available to pre-order from Bookshop – Hive.co.uk –  Waterstones – Kobo – Amazon – Google Books –

My Review

I love this series featuring American Cambridge History Professor Tom Wilde, and always look forward to a new book at this time of year.

Mostly set in Germany in the summer of 1945, the Allies are on the hunt for Hitler believing he is still alive somewhere in the mountains. Tom Wilde is called in to join the search, partnered by Lieutenant Mozes Heck, a Dutchman in the British Army, who detests Nazis with a passion. A real loose canon who gave me the feeling that anything could happen when he was asking the questions!

I felt very sorry for Tom at the beginning of this book when Philip Eaton of British Intelligence came calling again. As far as Tom was concerned the war was over, he was finally feeling settled at home again with Lydia and Johnny their young son. Tom’s instant reaction was that there was no way he was going to leave home again, but Lydia managed to convince him that he’d be a fool not to go looking for Hitler.

And so a hunt for the most hated man in the world begins, taking Tom Wilde already over Germany as he follows leads from former Nazis who’d been close to their leader. Was Hitler alive and hiding, or had he really killed himself in his bunker in Berlin? Their path was full of unknown dangers and twists and turns, as Wilde and Heck looked for information in the villages of the Bavarian countryside, refugee camps and the mostly obliterated cities of Germany. 

I learnt so much about Germany in 1945 reading this book. I didn’t realise how devastating the Allied bombing had been, leaving people starving and homeless. I was shocked to learn that the refugee camps were guarded by Germans who’d probably been Nazis and were now in charge of Jewish refugees!! What a truly nightmarish scenario!

This was another fab book in this fantastic series, with a lovely twist at the end, that will hopefully continue the series with more adventures for Tom Wilde, and Lydia too!

 The Man In The Bunker