David Laws

TWO MUNICH NOVELS Is there room for two novels on the same subject? An interesting question which arises with the simultaneous publication of new fiction about Munich – mine story MUNICH - THE MAN WHO SAID NO!(now on sale) and that of best selling thriller writer Robert Harris (MUNICH on the 21st) In this instance the novels use the same event – when Mr C went off to meet Herr H at Munich – but in every other respect they’re quite different takes on what was effectively the world’s first Summit meeting. His plot entails two friends involved on opposite sides during the four days of the Munich negotiations with themes of secrecy and betrayal. My story concentrates on one man desperate to stop the appeasement of Hitler. His intervention to try and prevent the pact being signed ends with him being “disappeared”. The story then progresses to a mystery about what happens to him afterwards: does he survive? Does he escape? His granddaughter follows the trail. PERSONAL VIEW I’m really excited that my first novel is now on sale. It’s a story I’ve always wanted to tell and reflects my fascination for events of the recent past. Those big stories within living memory, the current events of yesteryear. As a small boy I was in awe of my grown-up uncles. I used to ask them about their experiences. What was it like to be shipwrecked? What was it like to be captured by the enemy? Of course, this was the wartime generation, phlegmatic and retiring. They just laughed off my questions, so I went on my own voyage of discovery, digging into the why and the how, reading up on the big questions of war and peace. That’s how I came upon the incredible episode of Chamberlain flying off to Munich to talk peace to Hitler, one of the key stepping stones leading up to the catastrophe that was the Second World War. The result is my novel Munich – out now as an ebook and as a paperback in February.