The Boy Who Saw, Dark Objects, and The Clearing, and has worked in British television for more than twenty years. As a writer, director, and producer he’s made several award-winning shows, one of which won a BAFTA. He lives in England with his wife and family, where he is permanently at work on his next novel.
Toyne's new novel is The Black Highway.
Recently I asked the author about what he was reading. Toyne's reply:
I just this second finished reading Fatherland by Robert Harris.Visit Simon Toyne's website, Facebook page, Twitter perch, and Instagram page.
Harris is always dependable and is back in the limelight again recently after the success of Conclave, which weaves a taut thriller around the selection of a new Pope.
Fatherland was his first novel, written after a successful career in journalism, and is speculative fiction that follows the investigation of a senior Nazi official after the end of the Second World war after Germany won, Hitler is about to celebrate his seventieth birthday, Europe is United under the swastika, and the president of the United States,Joseph Kennedy (JFK’s dad), is about to visit the country to cement friendly ties between the two nations.
It’s a brilliant book, so well thought out and going into just enough detail about how things work post-war that you totally understand the repressive world you are in without ever losing sight of the central mystery, which involves looted art treasures and copied documents outlining the final solution and the creation then destruction of the concentration camps, an event that has been removed from history because, as we all know, the winners write the history books. The murder enquiry threatens to unearth this dark and buried secret and also implicate the beloved Fuhrer who had a hand in it so, needless to say, the Gestapo are very keen to stop the detective finding out the truth of why the man was murdered. There’s a love interest in the form of a feisty American journalist who works with the main character to try and bring the truth to the world and a parade of vivid secondary characters that could all have stepped out of an old Humphrey Bogart film.
I loved it, and, funnily enough, even though it was written back in 1992, this book about a fascist superpower run by gangsters and policed by masked thugs who use fear as their main weapon, felt somehow incredibly modern and relevant.
My Book, The Movie: Sanctus.
The Page 69 Test: Sanctus.
The Page 69 Test: The Tower.
My Book, The Movie: The Tower.
My Book, The Movie: The Searcher.
Writers Read: Simon Toyne (October 2015).
The Page 69 Test: The Searcher.
The Page 69 Test: The Clearing.
My Book, The Movie: The Clearing.
Q&A with Simon Toyne.
--Marshal Zeringue
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