Trieste suffered badly in the war under first the Fascists and then the Nazis, with the city’s Slovenian and Jewish populations being especially badly treated. The concentration camp referred to in the book – Risiera di San Sabba – did exist. Thousands of prisoners were murdered there, and many more were sent from there to Nazi death camps.
At the core of the plot is a plan for Nazis to escape from Europe from Trieste. It’s very well documented that the Italian ports (especially Genoa) were used as part of the various Nazi escape lines. Italy was the destination for many fleeing Nazis, and there is no doubt that their escape was often facilitated by the Roman Catholic Church.
In Chapter 2, reference is made to the particular problems the Special Operations Executive had with the Netherlands, and this is also based on fact. The Nazi occupiers of the Netherlands managed to penetrate the SOE N Section agents to such an extent that British undercover operations there were suspended for a while.
The Counter Intelligence Corps was an intelligence branch of the United States Army, and after the war it was involved in recruiting Nazis – especially scientists – to work for the US. There is no question that as the Second World War ended, both the United States and the Soviet Union quickly switched their focus to each other, hence both sides’ recruitment of Nazis to work for them.
Likewise, the Field Security Section existed during and after the Second World War as part of the British Army, with a security and intelligence function in areas occupied by British forces.
Readers may wonder whether I have stretched credulity with apparently respectable British citizens aiding the Nazis during and after the war. They may feel that in particular the character referred to as ‘the Admiral’ is especially unlikely. In fact there was an Admiral Sir Barry Domvile, a former Director of Naval Intelligence and such a prominent Nazi sympathiser that he was imprisoned under wartime regulations for three years from July 1940 to July 1943. Domvile was involved in shadowy organisations such as the Link and the Right Club, which were characterised by their pro-Nazi sympathies and virulent anti-Semitism. Together they claimed thousands of supporters, only a small number of whom would have been detained under Wartime Regulation 18B.
Cork Street in London’s West End – where the fictional Bourne and Sons is located – is the centre of the capital’s commercial art galleries. There is no known connection between the street and Nazi spy rings.
There are frequent references in the book to sums of money in pounds sterling. To get an idea of the value of these sums today, I rely on the Bank of England website. As a ready reckoner, £5 in 1945 would be worth approximately £217 today, equating to €243 or US$275. Other currencies are, as they say, available.
I’d like to express my sincere thanks and appreciation to the many people who’ve helped bring about the publication of this book, not least my agent Gordon Wise at Curtis Brown, who has been enormously supportive over a numbers of years. My publishers Canelo have done a fantastic job with the Prince series, and also in republishing my Spy Masters novels. End of Spies was the second book in the Prince series that I wrote during the COVID-19 crisis in the UK, but Michael Bhaskar and Kit Nevile and the whole team at Canelo remained attentive, professional and helpful throughout. Thanks too to Jane Selley for her skilful copy-edit, and to the many people who helped me with aspects of the book and answered seemingly odd questions as I was writing it.
And finally to my family – especially my wife Sonia, my daughters and their partners and my grandsons – for their encouragement, understanding and love.
Alex Gerlis
London, January 2021
About the Author
Born in Lincolnshire, Alex Gerlis was a BBC journalist for nearly thirty years. His first novel, The Best of Our Spies (2012), has been an Amazon bestseller, and is being developed for television serialisation by a major production company. The other books in the Spy Masters series of Second World War espionage novels are: The Swiss Spy (2015), Vienna Spies (2017) and The Berlin Spies (2018). Prince of Spies – the first novel in the Prince series commissioned by Canelo – was published in March 2020, followed by Sea of Spies, Ring of Spies and now End of Spies. Alex Gerlis lives in London, is married with two daughters and is represented by Gordon Wise at the Curtis Brown literary agency.
www.alexgerlis.com
Facebook: @alexgerlisauthor
Twitter: @alex_gerlis
www.canelo.co/authors/alex-gerlis/
Also by Alex Gerlis
Spy Masters
The Best of Our Spies
The Swiss Spy
Vienna Spies
The Berlin Spies
The Richard Prince Thrillers
Prince of Spies
Sea of Spies
Ring of Spies
End of Spies
First published in the United Kingdom in 2021 by Canelo
Canelo Digital Publishing Limited
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United Kingdom
Copyright © Alex Gerlis, 2021
The moral right of Alex Gerlis to be identified as the creator of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Ebook ISBN 9781800321557
Print ISBN 9781800322608
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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