Moonlight Over Denmark
Moonlight over Denmark is the tale of a small group of characters and their involvement in undercover operations in Nazi-occupied Denmark in 1943-1945. Hanns is a British agent dropped behind enemy lines whose tormented past threatens to turn him into a liability. Young Austrian recruit Gunter Herz/Geoffrey Hart is sent by the Special Operations Executive to pull Hanns out and complete his unfinished mission. But this means leaving behind the mysterious Danish woman Lilian, with whom Geoffrey is in love and who is also being drawn deeper and deeper into undercover work.
Their movements are coordinated and monitored by Captain George Henderson and his radio operator wife Katharine, both of whom have been keeping secrets from each other connected with the past.
I really wanted to like this book. The blurb seemed to promise a roller-coaster ride of passionate love and thrilling adventure. Instead, I found myself feeling oddly distanced from the characters, as if I was being told how they felt rather than experiencing those emotions for myself. Possibly it would have helped if I had read Schryer’s previous novel Goodnight Vienna, in which several of the key characters are evidently introduced. The plotting too is a bit dodgy in places, particularly when, without giving away too much, near the end of the book, Lilian accuses Geoffrey of something she has no means of finding out.
On the plus side, by focusing on the work of the Danish Resistance and the British agents helping them, Schryer has found an unusual angle on the oft-told tale of WWII.
