I think this is the seventh book in the series so Professor Tom Wilde is now retired from his secret service work during the war and living a quiet life in Cambridge with his wife and son. But of course, we readers know that there is no such thing as retirement for such people. Trouble will always find them and they feel a need to sort it out.
Wilde’s wife, Lydia, sets out to visit a friend in a nearby village only to find that all points of entrance are shut off and there is no access at all. She goes home and tells her husband who of course sets off to have a look and is caught by the military. It turns out that a deadly virus has been released and the whole village is very unwell and dying.
A second story that runs parallel is of two lovers who meet down in the sand dunes because they are married to other people and who see a submarine breaching not far off the coast and two men coming ashore. They can’t tell any one because that will mean admitting that they were there with each other so they leave it.
And then people start to die.
The plot then thickens as far right extremists become involved, a blacklist of people the Germans would like to kill and Germans and Japanese who ran hideous experiments on people during the war. Sadly, this part is based on fact. It’s actually quite hard to summarise the story because you always end up giving things away, suffice it to say, all turns out well in the end because Lydia and Tom are kind, tolerant people.
I think this book has more in it about Lydia. In previous books she has been there in the background, stuck at home, often in danger but never really had her own story line like this one. She wants to become a doctor but in those days married women couldn’t be – of course, your job was at home looking after your husband – so a few white lies have to be told in order that she can train. We are still left at the end of the book wondering why Lydia is on the blacklist and that might be our way into the next one.
You might also enjoy The Man in the Bunker by Rory Clements