The War Pianist

LoveReading Says

Un-put-down-able for fans of female-fronted historic novels and fictionalised accounts of the WWII period, Mandy Robotham’s The War Pianist teems with tension, courage, code-cracking and atmosphere as two women put everything on the line for the resistance.

It’s July 1940, and Marnie is an unmarried 32-year-old working as an assistant producer for the BBC in London, a city under siege from nightly blitz bombings. During one such attack, Marnie’s beloved grandfather is killed. When she returns to the debris of his premises and discovers a radio, it transpires that he’d been working as an undercover pianist (radio operative) for the Dutch resistance. Having grown up learning Morse code as a fun game with her granddad, she decides to step into his shoes when invited by his contact, Willem.“Fighting this bloody monster of fascism,” gives Marnie palpable purpose.

Meanwhile Corrie, another female pianist, is at the other end of Marnie’s transmissions in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam. When Willem vanishes, Marnie takes a huge risk by heading to Amsterdam, and both women find themselves facing the gravest of dangers.

Richly detailed, and propelled by spritely pace, a spirit of courage, and rising tension as it seems there might be a traitor in the women’s midst, The War Pianist is an accomplished war-time thriller with bags of character.

Joanne Owen

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