The Secret Guests, by Benjamin Black

The Secret Guests, by Benjamin Black
Available here

The name Black as part of the pseudonym is a declaration of intent. In this case for a John Banville with his overflowing creativity focused alternately on novels of all kinds. In the case of this novel, the Black seal as a simple association with the black genre in which Banville triumphs with his alias, is intermingled with other types of fictions.

Because here we find a hybrid of suspense and historical fiction that evokes the erratic movements of the British monarchy trying to avoid the incessant Blitz that dropped bombs night after night on London.

Benjamin Black raises his particular plot around what could have happened in those days when ridding the crown of any harm was considered of paramount importance. Without fully calibrating the risk that the two princesses Elizabeth and Margaret ran in an area of ​​Ireland that, although it seemed liberated from Nazi attacks, was not particularly friendly for any member of the monarchy that unified the islands. The War of Independence still closed many wounds ...

Like a pioneering witness protection program, the princesses are set in a house in a remote village. And in one way another the security will no longer be the same as that of your old palaces and alternative residences throughout England.

Secrets never are when two or more people know them. And in this case, although we cannot doubt the confidentiality of Celia Nash, the secret service agent who does what she can to fence security perimeters on the house, we have the owner of the old mansion who welcomes them and a policeman Irish as required link.

Dangers stalk a princesses who at ten and fourteen years old and renowned as Ellen and Mary will not do their best either towards total discretion. Because that would mean a cloistered life.

The conflict appears as a latent element that moves the plot. Even an unexpected outbreak that puts everyone in danger. The plot connects with rarefied diplomatic relations between England and Ireland, with old bitter hatreds that threaten to recover with this decision to protect the heiresses of the British crown.

The least black of all the works of Benjamin Black manages to recover a very interesting intrahistory of the black days of World War II.

You can now buy the novel The Secret Guests, Benjamin Black's new book, here:

The Secret Guests, by Benjamin Black
Available here
5/5 - (10 votes)

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