Winter in Madrid is an excellent novel, with convincing characters and a feeling of authenticity about the conditions in Madrid following the Civil War when the Germans were seeking to ally with the Spanish and the British were trying to stop them.
The story line itself is fast-paced and full of suspense, with many parallel threads developing to a conclusion full of drama. It is both spy novel, and also a love story, but also has great historical interest, showing the situation in Europe at the time, with British diplomats in Madrid trying to exert every influence to avoid a German/Spanish access by means of subtle relationship building with key people in the Spanish government.
The characters are totally convincing, being of their period, and with their personalities picked out in fine detail. The reader can empathise with them with little difficulty as they work from within the British Embassy but go out into a city full of intrigue and treachery.
The city of Madrid features strongly and C J Samson perfectly capture the feel of a city brought to the brink of devastation by war at a time when the Spanish Civil War was itself a vivid and bitter memory. Clearly Samson knows the city well and has had access to photographs and documents from the 1940s, for he is able to take the reader around the buildings street by street, describing the cafés and bars in which many conversations take place and the places people live from poor tenements to prestigious embassies. This is a fascinating counter-weight to the modern Madrid of tourism and anyone who has visited the city will recognise some of the locations.
Samson’s characters are caught up in the many compromises of war-time. Alliances have to be made which are seriously flawed, and betrayals are common. But the need for flexible diplomacy is crucial at a time when the Spanish government could so easily have allied with the Germans.
The author has conducted meticulous research into the history of the Spanish Civil War and its effects on the various classes of people in Spain. The book shows the great divisions in Spain following the war, and the bitter wounds caused to family and social relationships by the polarisation of the nation into two different sides. I can set this book alongside the very best works of Sebastian Faulkes, John le Carré, Alain Furst etc. This is a very fine book, with a strong story line set in a convincing portrait of Madrid in 1941. Well worth reading.
