The Suicide Club

Description

For all readers of Robert Harris, William Boyd and John le Carre, The Suicide Club is a First World War spy thriller set in Occupied Belgium in 1917, and tells the dark, disturbing and untold story of the shadow espionage battle fought behind the lines. Andrew Williams is 'in the front rank of English thriller writers' (Daily Mail) and his novels possess 'a richness of characterisation and intelligence that few thrillers can match' (Sunday Times). August 1917. Britain is mired in bloody stalemate on the Western Front and questions are being asked in government about the leadership of the army. Soldier spy Sandy Innes is summoned from his undercover work in Belgium by the new Secret Service to investigate. Officially transferred to Field Marshal Haig's headquarters in France to prepare agents for the next big push, his secret mission is to spy on Haig's intelligence chiefs. At GHQ, no one is interested in Innes's inside knowledge. Instead, he is attached to an advance assault group dubbed 'The Suicide Club'. His fellow intelligence officers have little faith in the top secret information being fed to Haig by their superior, and as Innes digs deeper he begins to suspect treachery. The stakes could not be higher: the fate of hundreds of thousands of British soldiers. In a tense race against time, against the background of political machinations in government and at GHQ, Innes must survive membership of The Suicide Club, and then risk all by going back behind enemy lines to uncover the truth.

Andrew Williams worked as a senior producer for the BBC's flagship Panorama and Newsnight programmes, and as a writer and director of history documentaries. He is the author of two bestselling non-fiction books, The Battle of the Atlantic and D-day to Berlin, and three acclaimed novels, The Interrogator, (shortlisted for the Ian Fleming Silver Dagger Award and the Ellis Peters Award), To Kill a Tsar, (shortlisted for the Ellis Peters Award and the Walter Scott Prize) and The Poison Tide. You can find out more about Andrew Williams and his writing at www.andrewwilliams.tv and www.hodder.co.uk, and you can follow him on twitter at @AWilliamswriter or on Facebook.

Meticulously researched and classily written - Sunday Times The war-damaged Innes is a strong, sympathetic character and the meticulously researched background is fascinating - The Times One of the best historical spy thrillers of recent time. The Suicide Club exceeded all my expectations. It really is very, very good: comprehensively researched, carefully plotted and quite brilliantly written. - SHOTS Andrew Williams synthesises historical writing with the excitement of the thriller: utterly persuasive character drawing, a pungent sense of locale and period, and sheer storytelling impetus that is impossible to resist. - Financial Times Praise for THE POISON TIDE: Two novels have established Andrew Williams as an outstanding writer of the historical thriller or spy story. Poison Tide will only enhance his reputation. It is very good indeed . . . Compelling and smoothly engineered . . . You will be lucky if you come upon a more engrossing and enjoyable historical thriller this year. Or perhaps next year - Scotsman A first-class thriller . . . possesses a richness of characterisation and intelligence that few can match. - Sunday Times One of those compelling reads that, once started, cannot be put down' - Scotland on Sunday