"Bermuda Contrails" a novel by Alan Edmund Smith

This novel is set mostly in a background of Bermuda and the English Cotswolds during WW2. The real world and the fictional interact against a backdrop of genuine events, summarised at the start of most chapters.

Today,  condensation trails made by high flying aircraft passing over Bermuda are a common sight, but Bermudians hadn't expected to see them over their Islands in 1940. Neither had Pamela Croft a young woman from Burford, England, who had just arrived in Bermuda on RMS Mataroa as a member of a British Censorship contingent of one hundred or so, from England. She saw her first contrail over Bermuda on her way to her temporary hotel, the Inverurie, just after she left the ship. She was on a horse and buggy and the sight sent shivers down her spine.

Bermudians felt sure that the contrails were the writing on the wall; Germany must be planning to invade Bermuda! Rumours began circulating that submarines had been seen off the South Shore. With no land aerodrome on Bermuda they knew these aircraft must be coming from overseas.

However the US, some 650 miles away, denied any knowledge of them. So did the British Government. The Royal Air Force were unable to determine which country these aircraft came from and did little to reassure Bermudians, although they tried hard.

Pam Croft quickly falls under Bermuda's spell and settles down there easily, in spite of the contrails, and stayed there as a Censorette for several years. During that time she developed a social life, mostly good but there were also some traumatic and complicated times, which she would never forget. She keeps up-to-date with Burford news by letters from her mother regularly.

There is not much good news, most of it is bad, some extremely bad which leads to an abrupt and dramatic end to her time in Bermuda. But this doesn't spoil her feelings for Bermuda, far from it; she returns there and eventually settles there, with a Bermudian husband and is present when a visitor provides the amazing truth about the wartime contrails.

Alan Smith first became interested in the wartime events in Bermuda following a visit to the Bermuda Maritime Museum in 1996, where he spotted some wartime photographs of flying boats moored off Darrell's Island, Bermuda. On the way back to Hamilton, the ferry passed Darrell's Island and it was the site of the now disused concrete ramps which were used to get the flying boats in and out of the water, which inspired him to try and find out more. His research has led to 3 novels, The Bermuda Affair, published in 2001; A sequel, the Bermuda Saga, in 2007, and now Bermuda Contrails.

Bermuda Contrails is published by Authors Online and can be purchased at www.authorsonline.co.uk as well as leading booksellers. An extract from Bermuda Contrails is available to read at www.authorsonline.co.uk

ISBN 9780755213900RRP: (paperback) £9.95, 370 pages : £3.95 (ebook)

Warships Of The Bay Of Quinte By Roger Litwiller

This is the story of six of Canada's Warships: HMCS Napanee, HMCS Belleville, HMCS Hallowell, HMCS Trentonian, HMCS Quinte (I), and the HMCS Quinte (II). These histories give a unique account of the small ships that have been the backbone of the Canadian Navy during the Second World War and the Cold War.

The stories record the accomplishments of these hardworking ships as well as the mistakes. This rich and vivid account of an important part of Canada's Naval Service draws from the records of the ships, interviews with their crews, letters, diaries, newspaper articles, community libraries and photographs.

You will learn about the HMCS Napanee as she fights a five day battle against twenty-four German submarines in on one of Canada's most tragic convoy battles. Be with HMCS Belleville as she fights to rescue a torpedoed merchant ship and find out about how a German submarine sinks the HMCS Trentonian late in the war killing six of her crew.


Roger's interest in Canada's Navy began as a Sea Cadet in his hometown of Kitchener, Ontario. He later became an officer in the Canadian Armed Forces Reserve and the Navy League of Canada. Educated in Emergency Medical Services, Roger has served the Quinte Region of Ontario since 1982 as a decorated Paramedic. Other interests include public speaking and photographic artist. Roger resides near Trenton with his wife Rhonda and their six children..

2011 PB 9781554889297 £18.99 Dundurn Press

Agent Zigzag by Ben Macintyre

Agent Zigzag by Ben Maciintyre is the incredible but true story of the most notorious double agents not only of World War 2 but perhaps of all time.

Eddie Chapman was a somewhat problematic mixture of a variety of disparate and conflicting strands. He was a soldier (cashiered due to not bothering to go back after a period of leave) an expert jelly man (using gelignite to crack safes) a thief, a rogue, one of the most charming and personable and likeable men you would ever possibly meet, a villain, a man of great courage, a lover, a man conscience.

Trapped in a prison on Jersey, Chapman was on the island when it was overrun by the Nazis. He hit on a cunning plan. What if he told the Germans that he would be willing to spy on Great Britain?

Eventually, after a series of mishaps, blunders and errors (not of Chapman's making) he was parachuted into a field in Cambridgeshire.

Soon he was working for British Intelligence as Agent Zigzag, the most successful double agent every used by MI5 to trick the Germans.

Macintyre was allowed absolutely unprecedented access to the Top Secret archives of MI5 which contained a wealth of information about the extraordinary life and career of Eddie Chapman.

An official report by MI5 said: "The story of Eddie Chapman is different. In fiction it would be rejected as improbable."

The book is extremely well researched and superbly written and well illustrated with copious photographs many from the official archives of MI5 and the German Abwehr.

Chapman, however, never received the recognition that he deserved. Macintyre was able to establish that this was due to the double dealing and perfidy of an MI5 official who was not only a disgraced drunk but who only got the job because of a family connection, but who took against Chapman for some, to be frank, bizarre reasons.

Thebook is published by www.bloomsbury.com in paperback at £7.99. though if you follow this link http://www.amazon.co.uk/mn/search/?tag=bookworms05-21&link_code=wsw&search-alias=aps&field-keywords=zigzag&Submit.x=8&Submit.y=6&rd=1 you can buy the book at a special discounted Amazon price of £4.55.