March 18, 2015

Finest Hour 160, Autumn 2013

Page 48

By Michael McMenamin

Novels are rated one to three stars on two questions: Is the portrayal of Churchill accurate? Is the book worth reading?

His Majesty’s Hope, by Susan Elia MacNeal. Bantam, softbound, 368 pp., $15, member price $12, Kindle edition $7.99. Portrayal★★★ Worth Reading★★★

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Churchill is undergoing a renaissance as a literary character in new, well-written novels—so much so that readers will no longer be burdened with reviews of any novel with low ratings, except where we receive multiple inquiries from readers, as for example the late, unlamented Churchill’s Secret Agent (FH 153). We don’t want you to read bad novels just because Churchill is a character. That is not the case with these two quite different recent efforts.

His Majesty’s Hope is a mystery thriller set in England and Germany in the latter half of 1941, third in the Maggie Hope series. In the first, Mr. Churchill’s Secretary (FH 156), Maggie is hired as a Churchill stenographer and helps foil a Nazi plot to assassinate the King. In the second, Princess Elizabeth’s Spy (FH 158), Churchill sends Maggie to MI5, which places her as a tutor to Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret in order to unmask a Nazi spy in the Royal household.

Now Maggie has joined Churchill’s Special Operations Executive (SOE) whose brief from the PM was “Set Europe Ablaze.” After months of grueling training in Scotland, Maggie, who is fluent in German, is selected by Churchill himself for a special mission to Berlin. The plot is complicated and, if you’ve not read the first two books in the series, there are spoilers which will give the plots in both away. But there are plenty of actual historical characters, including a number of good Germans, clergy and civilians alike. Hitler himself makes an appearance in connection with the actual occasion in 1941 where, for the first and last time, he was booed in public. It fits nicely in with the overall plot. Read the book and learn why.


Mr. McMenamin and his son Patrick are co-authors of the award-winning Winston Churchill thrillers The DeValera Deception, The Parsifal Pursuit and The Gemini Agenda, set during Winston Churchill’s “Wilderness Years,” 1929-39.

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