In the summer of 1942 Malta is a British-held fortress in the middle of the Mediterranean, which due to its strategic location was bombed relentlessly and indiscriminately by Axis aircraft killing and maiming service personnel and natives alike.

Major Max Chadwick is the garrison's ‘Information Officer’, his job is to minimise the bad and exaggerate the good news, to boost the morale of military or civilian inhabitants alike. So when he is given evidence suggesting that a British officer is raping and murdering local women, he recognises that, on the eve of a possible German invasion of the island, when the support of the civil populace was paramount, the consequences could be disastrous.

As Max slowly begins to suspect that the killer could also be a Nazi agent trying to create a wedge between the British and Maltese and unsure who he can trust, he embarks on a game of cat and mouse against a quarry who always seems to be one step ahead and whose outcome could have far reaching repercussions.

Normally I am a big fan of historical based fiction so why didn't I enjoy this more? The simple answer is that it seemed to fall between two differing camps, there is too little history for my taste and the thriller element somehow lacked a certain menace despite the carnage taking place around it.

That it is not to say that it didn't have some good elements. A likeable hero who was a little naive given his job but who was still willing to thumb his nose at his superiors and despite his desk-bound job still wanted to do his bit for the war effort. I rather enjoyed the portrayal of the officer class, a world of buffoons with stiff upper lips accompanied by their dutiful wives all trying to do their bit before retiring in the evenings to dinner parties and cocktails at the club whilst lesser folk either cowered in bunkers or did some actual fighting, of them literally feeling the earth move as they continued their elicit liaisons as the bombs rained on the island. . A group seemingly untouched by the ravages of war even if it felt a tad clichéd at times. The juxtaposition of beautiful old architecture and ruins reduced to rubble by modern munitions was at times evocative. But as I said earlier somehow it lacked a real edge and whilst the premiss was good it missed the mark, a bit like a lot of the Axis bombs. ( )

OK mystery cum spy story set in Malta during its perilous time during WW2 ( )

Boring - more like a lackluster thriller to consumed by war fact and geography. Lost the plot but sadly had potential ( )

A nice read.
I came across this because I was interested in the setting in Malta. There are lots of local references and the setting - during the German bombing of Malta in WW2 - added to the interest in the background. The story is basically a mystery thriller, with plenty of plot twists and misdirections.
Good fun, but not something that stands out as great literature.
Read May 2017. ( )

Malta was and is a convenient lily pad for any frog wanting to jump from Africa to Europe or vice versa. As such, it played an important role during WWII, the time period of this novel. In it, we have young, local girls being murdered and an apparent cover-up going on. Enter our Information Officer, who is determined to get to the bottom of things, even if it all falls outside of his usual purview and even if it means confronting some problem children tasked with defending the island from German and Italian attacks. The mystery is good here, and there are plenty of interesting characters, and--as is typical for Mills--there is a lot of ambiance and a really good sense of time and place. However, there are tons of problems with pacing, many of which can probably be traced back to an attempt to include too much irrelevant information. In addition to the book bogging down numerous times throughout, the ending--when it finally came--seemed rushed, creating the exact opposite problem from the one that hampers most of the story. All in all, a good read, but one that really needed a better editor. ( )