A compelling thriller and love story set in post–Civil War Spain.

Fans of Carlos Ruiz Zafón's The Shadow of the Wind and Sebastian Faulks's Birdsong will fall in love with Winter in Madrid, the arresting new novel from C. J. Sansom. In September 1940, the Spanish Civil War is over and Madrid lies in ruins while the Germans continue their march through Europe. Britain stands alone as General Franco considers whether to abandon neutrality and enter the war.

Into this uncertain world comes Harry Brett, a privileged young man who was recently traumatized by his experience in Dunkirk and is now a reluctant spy for the British Secret Service. Sent to gain the confidence of Sandy Forsyth, an old school friend turned shadowy Madrid businessman, Brett finds himself involved in a dangerous game and surrounded by memories.

Meanwhile, Sandy's girlfriend, ex-Red Cross nurse Barbara Clare, is engaged in a secret mission of her own — to find her former lover Bernie Piper, whose passion for the Communist cause led him into the International Brigades and who vanished on the bloody battlefields of the Jarama.

In a vivid and haunting depiction of wartime Spain, Winter in Madrid is an intimate and riveting tale that offers a remarkable sense of history unfolding and the profound impact of impossible choices.

"The playing fields of Rookwood did little to prepare reluctant spy Harry Brett for the moral no man's land of post — Civil War Spain that awaits him in this cinematic historical thriller from British author Sansom (Sovereign). But those halcyon days have made him one of the few people likely to win the confidence of fellow old boy Sandy Forsyth, now a shady Madrid businessman, Franco associate and object of intense curiosity to British intelligence. Despite his reservations, Brett — whose best friend from Rookwood, Bernie Piper, disappeared in Spain a few years earlier while battling Franco with the International Brigade — accepts the assignment as his duty, and almost as swiftly regrets it. For the Madrid he finds has become a mockery of the vibrant, hopeful place he and Bernie visited during the dawn of the Republic. As in his Matthew Shardlake mystery series set in Tudor London, Sansom deftly plots his politically charged tale for maximal suspense, all the way up to its stunning conclusion. A bestseller in the U.K., this moving opus leaves the reader mourning for the Spain that might have been — and the England that maybe never was." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"One learns fascinating facts about Spain, both during and after the civil war, from reading C.J. Sansom's new novel, 'Winter in Madrid.' For instance, a visitor to the famous Prado museum in the autumn of 1940 would have been confronted by mostly empty walls, as much of the art had been taken down for safekeeping during the bloody battle for Spain's political identity. Sansom also tells us that umbrellas... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) were almost impossible to find even on the black market and that the trees in the capital's beautiful Retiro park had been felled for fuel during the war.

The plot is a good one, centering as it does on three men — Bernie, Sandy and Harry, all former pupils at the same English public school. Bernie, a scholarship boy and committed communist, is lost — presumed dead — during the vicious battle of Jarama in February 1937. Sandy — an upper-class degenerate, a 'bad hat' who bears all the hallmarks of a stock villain, complete with a Clark Gable mustache — travels to postwar Spain in hopes of making a quick profit from a series of shady schemes. Harry — a survivor of Dunkirk — is recruited by the British intelligence services to spy on Sandy.

The story is further complicated by the fact that Sandy's live-in girlfriend, ex-Red Cross nurse Barbara Clare, has a secret mission of her own — to find her former lover, Bernie. She despises Sandy and still harbors feelings for Bernie; as one reads, one begins to feel the depth of her longing.

Sansom is good at spinning out the different elements of the story and building suspense. He uses all the tricks of a crime writer to keep the reader turning the pages, particularly in the last section, when Barbara and Harry hatch a daring plan to rescue Bernie from a prison camp in Cuenca. He is adept, too, at painting a picture of a cold and inhospitable Madrid at the start of the Franco era.

Less successful, however, is the way Sansom chooses to tell his story. Chapters often start using the same device: plunging the reader straight into the action, before recapitulating in a flashback. This is fine once or twice in the course of a book, but Sansom overdoes it to the extent that after a while the novel seems tired and repetitive. And the language, too, is lazy. On a single page, right at the beginning of the book, we have thirst that is 'raging,' heat that is 'hard as a hammer' and pain that shoots through a character 'like a knife.' Further on, Sansom describes a German fighter plane falling from the sky 'like a stone,' observes how a character's belief shifts 'like sand' and likens the feeling of separation between a couple to 'a physical pain.'

All this could, perhaps, be forgiven were it not for the sin Sansom commits at the very end of the book: killing off one of the main characters. Although Sansom is no doubt trying to make a statement about the utter futility of war, the way he does it — almost as a kind of afterthought, the reporting of the death taking up no more space than a single paragraph in the epilogue — results in a kind of emotional betrayal. What was the point, I asked myself, of investing so much energy, care and sympathy in one of the characters only for him to be wiped out in such a careless fashion? If I were the kind of reader to fling books across the room, that's what I would have done.

In the first chapter, Harry muses on the contrast between the idyll of his childhood and the horrors of war, wondering 'how the hell had it all changed from that to this?' A similar idea crossed my mind as I finished 'Winter in Madrid': It could have been so much better."

Reviewed by Andrew Wilson, author of the novel 'The Lying Tongue', Washington Post Book World (Copyright 2006 Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group)
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"Wise and melancholy and, eventually, very tense." Kirkus Reviews

"A combination of historical novel and spy thriller, this evocation of a dangerous diplomatic environment, where no one can trust anyone, will have widespread appeal." Booklist

"Sansom's splendid novel is not only similar in backdrop to For Whom the Bell Tolls; it is also written in much the same plain and direct style (though Sansom's descriptive powers, particularly when introducing a change in setting or when portraying winter weather conditions, are quite remarkable)." Philadelphia Inquirer

A vivid and haunting depiction of wartime Spain, Winter in Madrid presents an intimate and riveting tale that offers a remarkable sense of history unfolding and the profound impact of impossible choices.

C. J. Sansom was a lawyer but now writes full time. He holds a PhD in history and is the author of Dissolution, Dark Fire, and Sovereign in the Matthew Shardlake mystery series.