The Word Association
 

Rory Clements

Rory Clements RORY CLEMENTS, the bestselling author of two award-winning thriller series, has created a new protagonist named Sebastian Wolff.

He’s a murder cop in 1930s Munich, the spiritual home of the Nazi movement and a magnet for young British aristocrats. Wolff loathes Hitler and everything he stands for, but he is hemmed in by fanatics both at work and home.

Part thriller, part whodunit, Munich Wolf is Clements’s 15th full-length book. It instantly leapt into the Sunday Times Top 10 and has been hailed by readers and critics alike. The Times called it ‘atmospheric and gripping’. The Financial Times has called Clements ‘the master of the wartime spy thriller’.

Clements has made his name with the 1930s/40s novels featuring Cambridge professor/spy Tom Wilde and the John Shakespeare books set in Elizabethan England - and his readership continues to grow. He has twice won the CWA Historical Dagger - for Nucleus and Revenger - and has been shortlisted or longlisted for awards on nine occasions.

After a career in British national newspapers, Clements writes full-time in Norfolk, England. He is available for literary events and is always happy to talk about life in the 1930s and 1940s and the late 16th century. He is a member of the Crime Writers’ Association, the Historical Writers’ Association, the Society of Authors, International Thriller Writers and English PEN. His books have been sold to 14 countries.

For more information visit www.roryclements.co.uk

TThe latest book: Munich Wolf

Rory Clements - Munich Wolf 1935: When a high-born English girl is found murdered, Munich police detective Sebastian Wolff is ordered to solve the crime. The problem is, he is already walking a tight line between doing his job and falling foul of the political party he despises. He has even been consigned to the Dachau concentration camp for a night for failing to salute Hitler.

But he is good at his job and he speaks English so he is the obvious choice to find the killer. There are international implications because Germany is involved in delicate negotiations with the British government on a new naval treaty - and the Führer is taking a personal interest in the case.

Followed by the secret police and even threatened with denunciation by his own son - a zealous member of the Hitler Youth - Wolff’s task seems impossible. And when he begins to suspect that the killer might be linked to the highest reaches of the Nazi hierarchy, he realises he might become the next victim.

The English Führer

Autumn 1945. The war is over - a new enemy rises. Off the east coast of England a Japanese submarine surfaces, unloads its sinister cargo, then blows itself to pieces.

Former spy Professor Tom Wilde is enjoying peacetime in Cambridge, settling back into teaching and family life. Until a call from senior MI5 chief Lord Templeman brings him out of retirement.

A nearby village has been locked down by the military, its residents blighted by a deadly illness. No one is allowed in or out.

There are rumours that the Nazi war machine is still operational, with links to Unit 731, a notorious Japanese biological warfare research facility. But how could they possibly be plotting on British soil - and why?

What’s more, Wilde and Templeman’s names are discovered on a Gestapo kill list. And after a series of assassinations, an unthinkable question emerges: could an Englishman be behind the plot?

Tom Wilde Book 3:NEMESIS

August 1939: In a great English house, a young woman offers herself to one of the most influential figures in the land - but this is no ordinary seduction. She is planning his death. On holiday in France, Professor Tom Wilde discovers his student Marcus Marfield, who disappeared two years earlier to fight in Spain, imprisoned in a camp near the Pyrenees. Wilde secures his release just as German tanks invade Poland. Meanwhile, a U-boat sinks the liner Athenia and many - including Americans - are drowned. The Nazis claim Britain blew up the ship to blame Germany and lure America in to the war. As the strands of an international conspiracy unwind, Tom Wilde finds himself in grave danger. For just who is Marcus Marfield and where does his loyalty lie?

Tom Wilde Book 2: NUCLEUS

June 1939. England is partying like there’s no tomorrow … but the good times won’t last. The Nazis have invaded Czechoslovakia. In Germany, Jewish persecution is widespread. And in Britain, the IRA has launched a bombing campaign. Most worrying of all, scientists have now made an atomic bomb possible - and German High Command knows Cambridge’s Cavendish Laboratory is at the forefront of the race, which means the Nazis must discover its secrets before it’s safe to wage war. When one of the Cavendish’s finest brains is murdered, Professor Tom Wilde is drawn into the investigation. In a conspiracy that stretches from Cambridge to Berlin and from Washington to Ireland, it seems as if the fate of the world rests on the discovery of a kidnapped child. Can Wilde find the truth before it’s too late?

Tom Wilde Book 1: CORPUS

1936. Europe is in turmoil. The Nazis have marched into the Rhineland, Stalin has unleashed his Great Terror on the Soviet Union, and Spain has erupted in civil war. In Berlin, a young Englishwoman evades the Gestapo to deliver vital papers to a Jewish scientist. Within weeks, she is found dead in her Cambridge bedroom, a silver syringe clutched in her fingers. In a London club, three senior members of the establishment light the touchpaper on a conspiracy that will threaten the lives of royalty and government ministers. When a renowned member of the county set and his wife are found horribly murdered, a maverick Cambridge history professor finds himself drawn into a world of espionage which, until now, he has only read about in books.

But the deeper Tom Wilde delves, the more he wonders whether the murders are linked to the death of the girl with the silver syringe - and, just as worryingly, with the scandal surrounding King Edward VIII and his mistress Wallis Simpson.

Professor Wilde’s specialist subject is the Elizabethan secret service. With the spires of academia drenched in blood, he must use all the skills he has learnt in his dusty tomes to save the woman he loves and prevent a massacre.

John Shakespeare Book 7: HOLY SPY

1586. In London’s smoky taverns a conspiracy is brewing, and John Shakespeare must infiltrate the plotters. However, equally pressing is the murder charge against the woman he loves. As he battles unseen forces he begins to realise that his investigations are inextricably linked - by corruption at the very seat of power.1586. In London’s smoky taverns a conspiracy is brewing, and John Shakespeare must infiltrate the plotters. However, equally pressing is the murder charge against the woman he loves. As he battles unseen forces he begins to realise that his investigations are inextricably linked - by corruption at the very seat of power.


Bibliography

Bibliography

TOM WILDE SERIES: Corpus (2017), Nucleus (2018), Nemesis (2019), Hitler’s Secret (2020), A Prince And A Spy (2021), The Man In The Bunker (2022), The English Führer (2023). All published in the UK by Bonnier Zaffre.

JOHN SHAKE JOHN SHAKESPEARE SERIES: Martyr (2009), Revenger (2010), Prince (2011), Traitor (2012), The Heretics (2013), The Queen’s Man (2014), Holy Spy (2015). All published in the UK by John Murray or Hodder & Stoughton. In addition, a John Shakespeare novella, The Man In The Snow, was published as an ebook in 2012 and was later included in The Queen’s Man