Appointment in Paris by Jane Thynne

Jane Thynne’s latest WWII espionage thriller features the investigative team of Stella Fry and Harry Fox, previously seen in her prewar novel Midnight in Vienna. Both characters intrigue readers with their internal contradictions.

After pre-years spent in Europe, Stella speaks French and German well. Siix months into the blackout, she’s feeling bored with her work at the GPO Film Unit in Soho Square. When she’s recruited in an unorthodox fashion for a very secret assignment, she manages the shock with aplomb.

We meet Harry at the Zoo preparing for a rendezvous with MI5’s Maxwell Knight. Harry is an unofficial MI5 operative. Too old to join the war effort, he’s a drinker and a “negligent dresser” with numerous contacts in the emigre community and a facial scar from a brawl. A freelance investigator well versed in classical knowledge and the King James Bible as well as a voracious reader of detective novels, Harry can also “recite tracts of Shakespeare from memory.”

Well aware he defies Knight’s usual system of categorization, he reflects ironically that “members of the security services liked their prejudices confirmed, and…surveillance foot soldiers were rarely cultivated men of letters.”

The plot follows the usual twists and turns expected in the genre and Thynne’s writing is vivid. In particular, I enjoyed her evocative descriptions of Trent Park, where a museum will open in the summer of 2026. Arranged by a writer friend living nearby, I had the privilege of touring it while under construction. The tour provided impetus for my writing as this fascinating wartime facility is on setting in a novel manuscript I’m still working on.

For my own reasons as well as for the satisfying pleasure of a well-told story, I greatly enjoyed this novel.