Winter in Madrid

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Winter in Madrid
Author	C. J. Sansom
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Genre(s)	Spy, Thriller, War novel
Publisher	Press
Publication date	6 January 2006
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	511 pp
ISBN	ISBN 978-1405005463

Winter in Madrid is a spy novel written by C. J. Sansom. The setting is just after the Spanish Civil War in 1940 and London, England. The main character is a wounded veteran, Harry Brett. He received his wounds during the Dunkirk withdrawal.

[edit] Plot and storyline

Following his recovery, he is recruited by the British Secret Service to make contact with Sandy Forsyth, a shady Madrid based British businessman and a former schoolfriend. Harry's cover is as an interpreter in the British embassy in Madrid. He arrives in Spain in October 1940. He finds the Spanish people suffering terribly from political repression, food shortages, poverty and the destruction brought by the Spanish civil war. Through bretts work at the embassy we meet the ambassador Sir Samuel Hoare, an arrogant bully and Alan Hillgarth, the clever cunning chief of intelligence. In a twist of fate, Sandy Forsyth's girlfriend Barbara Clare is a former lover of another schoolfrieind of Bretts Bernie Piper, a communist member of the International Brigades MIA since the Battle of Jarama in 1937. Harry Brett meets Forsyth who claims to have found large gold deposits in central Spain. Meanwhile Barbara meets luis an unemployed Nationalist Spain veteran who tells her that Bernie is still alive and is being held in a brutal Military Prison near Cuenca. He tells her that he could organise Bernie's escape through his brother who is a guard at the camp in return for money. Harry starts a relationship with Sofia Roque Casas, a feisty Spanish working class woman. Towards the end of the story Forsyths claims of discovering gold are proved to be a forgery but in doing so he offends powerful people within the Francisco Franco circle. Bernie Piper escapes the labour camp, Barbara, Harry and Sofia travel to Cuenca to aid his escape. But its proven to be an elaborate trap set by General Maestre. As a way of embarrassing Sandy Forsyth they manage to escape, but Sofia is killed by a member of the Guardia Civil and Bernie shot in the leg by Maestre. They manage to get back to Britain. Forsyth has vanished.

[edit] Epilogue

The epilogue plays in May 1947. Harry Brett is working as French teacher in a Grammar School. Barbara Clare is a translator on her way to meet some South American businessmen. Both are nursing private heartache over losing their one true loves: Harry over Sofia and Barbara over Bernie who died during the Normandy Landings.