'Redeemable'

Last December my editor at John Murray, Kate Parkin, asked me if I’d like to write a short ebook between ten and fifteen thousand words, to be published in April, a little more than a month before the publication of Black Bear in May. That is how Redeemable came about.I’ve just sent off the checked and edited version, a little over twelve thousand words. It concerns Cotton’s brief sojourn in Germany between July and August 1945. In other words, the story takes place between The Maze of Cadizand Washington Shadow.
While Redeemable is not of a length for much development, it concerns a curious and uncomfortable time in the BZO or British Zone of Occupation. It is generally agreed that the British Army started WW2 in poor shape; by May 1945 the troops had learnt and improved in very great measure. As one of my still-living sources put it – ‘Having got a real fighting force at last, the troops then had to be sent home.’ In the meantime, without an enemy, they found themselves relatively rich in Germany at least. They had access to cheap tobacco, chocolate and alcohol. In a defeated country with a population desperate to keep afloat, this was power. It’s not surprising that the black market flourished in all the occupied zones. There were four – the French, Soviet and US all occupied other different areas of the country.
My living sources all said they had loathed the atmosphere, which they described as ‘corrupt’ or ‘decadent’. There was also an odd innocence. One person (who had been in a tank regiment) described travelling on a ship on its way back to the UK from Hamburg as the soldiers were ordered to rid themselves of the goods they had acquired. These included washing machines and fur coats, which all went sailing overboard into the North Sea. 
Of course this is not much talked about but it made me take great care over events in Redeemable. So the stand-off with some Soviets described in the story is based on fact (though it was Major against Major) and the gleaming Mercedes Benz 540K acquired by a Commanding Officer ‘for a song’ was real. Nearly seventy years on, my source gave me the CO’s name and described him as having ‘the morals of a pole-cat.’
Redeemable' will be available on 4th April - cover coming soon.