Thursday, March 9, 2023

Cara Black---Night Flight to Paris

DEBORAH CROMBIE: It is always such a treat for us to have Cara Black visit on Jungle Red--we fight over who gets to host her! And I'm thrilled to see Kate Rees, Cara's WWII sharpshooter heroine from THREE HOURS IN PARIS, back in her new novel, NIGHT FLIGHT TO PARIS. Just the title gives me goosebumps! Here's Cara to take us on a little virtual adventure!

 

—— Bonjour Reds,

    Thanks for inviting me, Debs. It’s great to visit all you Jungle Reds again. In my story, NIGHT FLIGHT TO PARIS, I explore friendships, especially between women. Who can you rely on and who can you trust when youre not supposed to trust anyone. And during wartime when your life depends on it?

    Kate Rees, an Oregonian born on a backwoods ranch during the Depression, was raised using a rifle to protect the ranch and hunt game. Weve met her in the preceding book, THREE HOURS IN PARIS. Shes got a bit of Annie Oakley in her and descends from frontier women. So Kate, now a young widow with sharpshooting skills, finds herself stranded in WW2 Britain. When the British intelligence service discovers this - what better skill to use against the enemy, the Germans, and avenge her family?

    I love research. For me it involves visiting the Spy Museum in Washington, DC to see historical spy gadgets, consulting the French archives and collections of the Imperial War museum in London. And going to Paris! The best part of my job! Debs, I think you might agree with there about going to research in London, right?

    Walking the ground of these cities and places is research for me - it’s about capturing the play of light, the nuances and being in actual places where history/the war happened. To feel the past on a cobbled street in Paris, sites of the Blitz. Visiting Churchill’s war rooms in London was like walking into another time. I could almost touch history at the battle sites and memorials in North Africa. So the challenge is while I visit the places I write about in NIGHT FLIGHT TO PARIS: crawled in the tunnels and Catacombs under Paris, toured the Hotel Lutetia in Paris where the German Abwehr - military intelligence - was headquartered - and walked the Cairo streets, I didn’t go there in 1942. I wish I could time travel. Any writer faces this challenge writing historical fiction and we - at least I do - draw on shared universal experiences. Do my best to evoke another time and place bringing in sensory details.



    I got stranded once in Cairo - robbed in the train station which left me broke. Long story but with a surprisingly happy ending and a good Egyptian friend I have to this day. However, this sense of being stranded in a foreign country where I couldn’t speak the language or even read streets signs brought me to where Kate Rees, my protagonist might be. Her fear. The alienation and otherness she would feel, the myriad difficulties she’d encounter with no one she could trust. Her senses on overload from a place exotic and foreign to her as it was to me.

    My eyes were opened reading the accounts, memoirs and archived letters of young women who worked in the WW2 British Signals division. Amazing heroic stuff and so little known. Only now are various intelligence documents being de-classified and available for research. After eighty years! Many records were lostand destroyed so well never know. I consulted files about the listening devices recording captured German POW’s and high ranking military. At one point the POW’s - elite German military - were held in the Tower of London - it was bugged to hear what they were saying. You can’t make this stuff up!   

 


    I grew up watching old WW2 documentaries - black and white ones and Victory at Sea - since they were always on and I later found out members of my family had served. My mother’s cousin  - my second cousin had served in Italy and rarely spoke of it. But the more I learned after he passed, made me curious about this theatre of war. And what I never saw in the documentaries was women’s role in the war. Women were behind the scenes but very much a strategical component.

    Researching woman’s roles during that time I discovered the Russian army had a unit of female sharpshooters/snipers who plagued the German army. Lyudmila Pavlichenko, a battle-tested and highly decorated lieutenant in the Red Armys 25th Rifle Division, visited the US at Eleanor Roosevelt’s invitation in 1942 and toured the White House.



It surprised me when I did research that the US didn’t follow suit. But women then weren’t allowed in combat. Also, female sharpshooters weren’t allowed in the Olympics until 1970’s games in Mexico City. What an underutilised resource!

      I like secrets. We all have them. Hidden lives intrigue me. Hiding in plain sight. Espionage involves facades shown to the world and different on the inside.  What better place or time for this than with the high stakes in WW2? Kate’s descended from pioneer women, grew up on an Oregon ranch with five brothers and developed grit, resilience and is driven after losing her family. It’s tough to know what I can throw at her next but the war’s not over :)

Wishing you happy reading! Cara

www.carablack.com

It is once again up to American markswoman Kate Rees to take the shot that just might win—or lose—World War II, in the followup to national bestseller Three Hours in Paris.

Three missions. Two cities. One shot to win the war.


October 1942: it’s been two years since Kate Rees was sent to Paris on a British Secret Service mission to assassinate Hitler. Since then, she has left spycraft behind to take a training job as a sharpshooting instructor in the Scottish Highlands. But her quiet life is violently disrupted when Colonel Stepney, her former handler, drags her back into the fray for a risky three-pronged mission in Paris.

Each task is more dangerous than the next: Deliver a package of forbidden biological material. Assassinate a high-ranking German operative whose knowledge of invasion plans could turn the tide of the war against the Allies. Rescue a British agent who once saved Kate’s life—and get out.

Kate will encounter sheiks and spies, poets and partisans, as she races to keep up with the constantly shifting nature of her assignment, showing every ounce of her Oregonian grit in the process.



 Cara Black is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of 20 books in the Private Investigator Aimée Leduc series, and two World War II-set novels featuring American markswoman Kate Rees. Cara has received multiple nominations for the Anthony and Macavity Awards, a Washington Post Book World Book of the Year citation, the Médaille de la Ville de Paris—the Paris City Medal, which is awarded in recognition of contribution to international culture—and invitations to be the Guest of Honor at conferences such as the Paris Polar Crime Festival and Left Coast Crime. 

DEBS: I love that we're learning what an important role women played in WWII, and it's always such a pleasure to visit Paris with Cara, no matter the time period. She'll be dropping by today to say bon jour and to answer all your questions!

READERS, what's your favorite fictional WWII setting?

    

67 comments:

  1. Congratulations, Cara, on your new book. It certainly sounds as if Kate is in the middle of so much . . . I'm looking forward to discovering how it all turns out.

    My favorite World War II settings are the stories that involve pilots and flying . . . .

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    1. Hi sorry to be late! Technical issues - thank you Joan!

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  2. Congrats on the new book!

    I enjoy reading about the war in Europe, but I also enjoy reading about what life was like in America at the time.

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  3. I love hearing about the roles women played during wars like WWII. How fabulous that the records are now being unsealed. How did you figure out where to look to read them, Cara?

    Like Mark, I enjoy reading about the home front. There's also something still alive about WWII - my parents lived through it as young adults and it was much talked about when I was a child. My shy intellectual father served on a remote communications post in India, a setting I never hear about.

    Félicitations on the new book - can't wait to get my hands on it!

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    1. Edith, it would be so interesting to read more about India during the Second World War. This was a few years before India became Independent from the British Empire?

      Diana

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    2. Edith - records become unsealed and yet so many are still classified.

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  4. Congratulations on your new book, Cara. Thinking back, the first adult books that I read were books about WWII, books by Leon Uris, James Mitchner, Herman Wouk. It seems that interest has lasted all my life. I often find myself choosing series and stand alones that reveal certain aspects of that war that I knew little about.

    Born just two years after the war's end, I have never wished that I lived through it. But the horrors that affected the people around me, especially during my childhood, had a profound effect on me. Stories about heroism during that war, lift me up in a way that is difficult to describe. Thanks for sharing about your travels and reseach. Your Kate Rees books are on my radar.

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  5. CARA: I am so glad to read another book with Kate!
    Do you know if the intelligence archives are now available in other countries besides France after 80 years?

    My favourite WWII setting is in England.

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    1. Grace in the UK files are being declassified every year- it’s to do I think with descendants

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    2. That was me, Grace! Every country has their own regulations and it's tricky figuring this out!

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  6. Welcome Cara! Congrats on the new book. I wonder when you know you've done enough research to write?

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    1. Lucy, thank you! I go down rabbit holes often. Deadlines help

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  7. How timely. I am in the middle of reading Aimee Leduc's adventurers in Murder in the Latin Qtr.
    Has anyone read "A Woman of No Importance (The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win WW2)," by Sonia Purnell. It is about the life of Virginia Hall. Truly an amazing woman. The CIA has a building named after her in Langley, VA.

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    1. Thanks! I loved that book and wish she had gotten recognition while she was alive!

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  8. Congratulations on your latest book, Cara. I must meet Kate via my Kindle.

    One of my favourite books set around WWII is Gone to Soldiers by Marge Piercy, with characters in America whose lives are changed by the war, either because they fight in it or their loved ones do. From that book, I learned about the US Women's Air Force Service Pilots; I love learning history through fiction.

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    1. I agree, Amanda. I also love learning history through fiction.

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    2. I love learning history through fiction, too, and the converse, learning literature through history. I've been reading Hemingway's letter from 1923-1925, and thinking about how much I didn't understand when I was introduced to his work in high school. I had no clue about the trauma sufffered by those who'd served in WWI, and how it affected them for the rest of their lives. I wish the writing and the external framework had been taught concurrently--it would have made such a difference.

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    3. Debs even today stories get discovered after a person dies and there is a Croix de Guerre medal in the drawer!

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  9. Martin Walker weaves local history into his Bruno, Chief of Police books set in Dordogne, usually about the Resistance and WW2 atrocities. I didn't realize the extent of Nazi brutality until we visited the area last fall. Every village had a monument to fallen heroes, soldiers and members of the Resistance. The tombstones in the local cemeteries gave tribute to the fallen, often decorated with flower tributes and notes. They will always be remembered.

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    1. I love Martin Walker's books for their historical detail, fascinating. (And the food!)

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    2. Yes, Martin Walker's books are great.

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  10. Congratulations, Cara on your new novel!

    My favorite World War II setting is in England.

    And thinking of movies like the German movie about a family who emigrated to Africa just before the outbreak of the war and American movies like the Indiana Jones movies set during the war.

    Diana

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    1. Yes, Diana, the Indiana Jones movies are a fun way to get a little WWII history!

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  11. Congratulations! I think I will enjoy your book. Like Amanda, I loved Marge Piercy's Gone to Soldiers, which really painted a picture of life during WWII here in the US. I also have to mention Connie Willis's books Blackout and All Clear. Her premise is that future historians do their research by traveling into the past and actually being there for historical events. These books are an amazing glimpse at WWII Britain. Willis's details about the fight to save St. Paul's cathedral reminded me of a non-fiction book that I read and loved called Blitz, The Story of December 29, 1940 by Margaret Gaskin. It is a totally gripping historical narrative.

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    1. I LOVE Connie Willis's books, and now am going to check out your other recommendations, Gillian, especially Blitz.

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    2. Gillian, I loved Blackout and All Clear. In fact, I love all of her time traveling historians books.

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    3. I love time travel as a genre (the Chronicles of St. Mary’s series by Jodi Taylor is a favorite of mine) so have to check out Connie Willis’ books. Thanks for the recommendation, Gillian! - Pat S.

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  12. Congratulations, Cara. I love all the facts about the role of women in WWII that are coming out as documents come to light.

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    1. Thanks - so many stories didn't make it in the book!

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  13. Cara, congratulations! I found Kate's first adventure enthralling and will be reading this one. Like others here, I was born a few years after the end of WWII--my dad found in the Pacific Theatre. My favorite WWII stories illuminate forgotten people and places that have faded from our national consciousness.

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  14. Congratulations, Cara, on your latest. I've just met Kate, now I have to catch up with her!

    Women's participation in the war fascinates me. They are the unsung heroines. I'm glad documents are coming to light.

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  15. Congratulations on your new book! And completely agree that the research is one of the best parts of writing an historical novel. I love the idea of an Annie Oakley protagonist - especially on International Women’s Day!

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  16. I find it amazing that women were not allowed the to compete as sharpshooters in the Olympics until 1970. I agree with Kait, it is fabulous that documents now becoming available. Your new book sounds great and I can't wait until the workday is done so I can check out local availability.

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  17. I stayed up too late last night, reading Cara's book! It's so gripping, and I can't wait to get to the part set in Cairo.

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    1. Thanks, Debs! Cairo was a nest of spies in 1942! After reading many memoirs and especially of the aristo with pet mongooses I knew I couldn't make this up!

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  18. I recently read a novel by Jules Wake called The Secrets of Latimer House about three women who are recruited to gather intelligence from German prisoners of war in England. She usually writes contemporary romance/women's fiction but had seen a story about recently opened documents revealing this work, and knew she had to write a story about it. Fascinating.

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    1. Putting that on my list. Dr Helen Fry wrote about this too in The Walls Have Ears

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  19. Cara, you are such a STAR! I do not know how you do it...increible. Cannot wait to read this. And I love when the universe provides an idea..and you are wise enough to recognize it. YAAY!

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    1. Cheers Hank ! Honestly there are so many more stories out there that should be told!!

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  20. I'm a baby boomer so all my friends' dads participated in WW2. My own dad was a meteorologist stationed in various places throughout the war, including Alaska. Mom and most civilians knew all the aircraft flown by our military. It is amazing to realize that virtually the whole country was behind this war and supporting our soldiers and allies. I enjoy books that take place in England and France and encompass civilians as well as the soldiers. You don't have to wear a uniform to fight for your country!

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    1. So true Pat! Kate Middleton's grandmother was a code breaker at Bletcheley Park but she was referred to as a 'girl' like they all were and her files destroyed because her contribution wasn't as important as the male coders!

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  21. Cara, I think I've read all your LeDuc books and look forward to this new series. I guess I'm old, because WWII seems like recent history to me, with my Dad and other family members having served during the conflict. When I did my junior year abroad in France, I was at a place that was the regional German headquarters--complete with a museum of the resistance, and the moving monument where the maquis were executed. My neighbor during that year was a woman who had been born and raised in the town; she lost her whole family to deportation because they were Jewish, and she only survived because a Catholic family sheltered her and adopted her.

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  22. From Rhys: congrats on the book. It is so exciting! I’m looking forward to interviewing you on Saturday. And I didn’t know you got robbed in Cairo!!!

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    1. Thanks Rhys! Getting robbed at the train station - broke, and stranded was an experience pre-cell phone became fodder fodder for the book!

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  23. Honestly, Cara, YOU live a life that would make for compelling fiction! I loved THREE HOURS IN PARIS and I can't wait to follow up with NIGHT FLIGHT TO PARIS.

    I always wonder why it is we find WWII so endlessly compelling (and I count myself among this number.) It's not even the distance of time - there have been great books and films set in the war starting in the 1940s and continuing to this day. Maybe because it has the greatest scope for storytelling of any event in the Modern era.

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    1. Thanks Julia! Yes you're probably right about the continuing lure of WW2 - we also have family who served and kept their stories to their chest and this ripples through generations

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  24. Cara, I'm about to finish reading Lessons in Chemistry that takes place in the 50s and 60s. I love the book, but I've gotten mad more than once reading it when the main character, a woman, is overlooked and denied her rightful place as a scientist. In reading your post about how women were allowed to be pilots and serve in the armed forces in Great Britain and Russia but not the U.S., it made me wonder how the role of scientist was handled outside of the U.S. during the war and the next decade. I'm looking forward to reading a book where women are allowed to excel in what was a former male territory, and in the 40s. It sounds like the land of the free and the home of the brave has been the last to allow women to serve. I was talking to my adult daughter, who is 39, about how the fights women fought to get their rights appear to need fighting again in view of the current attack on women's rights, and I reminded her that I was a sophomore in college (1974) when a woman could obtain a credit card in her own name. So, Night Flight to Paris will satisfy my need right now to read about capable women being allowed to be capable, and my enjoyment of reading about WWII.

    To answer the question, England is my favorite WWII setting.

    And, Cara, your experience of being stranded in Cairo or anywhere a different language from your own is the main language would be scary. It sounds like you kept your head and got through it okay though.

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  25. Favorite WWII fictional setting: the French coastal town in All the Light We Cannot See. Plus, I'm a sucker for books set in Paris. I'm looking forward to digging in to Cara's series very soon.

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  26. I adored THREE HOURS IN PARIS and can't wait to read NIGHT FLIGHT TO PARIS! You create such compelling characters in such dire circumstances. Always a page turner!

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    1. Thank you Jenn! It's such a ripe time for suspense and high stakes and people not kn owin g if they would survive until tomorrow!

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    2. Thanks Jenn - WW2 was all about high stakes - you didn't know if you'd live until tomorrow

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  27. Congratulations, Cara! Kate Rees sounds like a terrific heroine. I look forward to meeting her (already know Aimée Leduc!). I thought, as several of you did, about Connie Willis's time travel books and All the Light We Cannot See, but I think the WWII setting I found most interesting recently was Mark T. Sullivan's Beneath a Scarlet Sky, because it taught me a lot about the war in Northern Italy from an Italian point of view.

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  28. Looking forward to reading your Kate Rees books, Cara! I love WWII as a topic to read about. My dad flew B-17s and participated in D-Day so that’s one aspect I enjoy reading about. I think the espionage and code breaking parts are really my favorite WWII subjects, though.

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  29. Oops, that was Pat S. above!

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  30. KimHaysBern's comment about Italy reminded me of another favorite WWII novel, A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell. It's set in Italy and tells the story of Italian Jews and Christians working together in the resistance and providing aid to Jewish refugees who made it across the mountains to Italy. So sad and so beautiful.

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    1. Another one I want to read
      Gillian! There is a new generation of female historians and female military historians coming up who will change the course of male written history to a more inclusive one - I hope!

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  31. My favorite WWII book was called The Tangled Skein. It was a 1942 Junior Literary Guild book that had been my mother’s. It was about a girl in a small village in Norway who helped the resistance while discovering that her family weren’t the traitors that she’d been led to believe by the villagers who had shunned her. On a slightly tangential topic, why are there so few WWII books written about the Pacific theater of the war? Any ideas? Just curious…. And Cara, looks like I’ll be headed to a bookstore soon to get the first book in the series… sounds wonderful!

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  32. I have loved the Aimee LeDuc series and have considered each new book a free trip to Paris. Congratulations on your new book. This sounds like a great new series. I love spy stories.

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  33. As a lurker, I love your comments and especially book recommendations! Thank you all!

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