A Time to Tell Lies

Book Description

In the morning of Tuesday November 10, 1942, near a small village in SW France, the scheduled pickup for a Special Operations Executive agent goes terribly wrong. Alex and Justine, agents with a life expectancy measured in weeks find themselves entangled in a desperate project they never fully understand. They are also lovers.

With fake news and disinformation making daily headlines, we can easily forget that neither activity is at all new. A Time to Tell Lies is a fictionalised account of two of the most daring disinformation projects of WWII - one German and one British. If the story told by Herman Giskes in 1953 is to be believed, he successfully deceived the Allies for many months and was responsible for the capture (and death) of many SOE agents in Holland. But should we believe his story? Perhaps the truth is even worse.

While Giskes was at work, Operation Periwig was being planned in universities in Britain – a project so secret that it is rarely mentioned even now. Kennedy draws on his long immersion in the world of university politics to chronicle what can go wrong when everybody is telling lies. And also – because this is a love story – what can go wrong when love is not enough.

Set in the 1940s, the novel shifts between a fearful wartime London, nervously awaiting its inevitable invasion, and a fatally compromised France. Uncertain who to trust and trained to lie to their wartime masters and to the enemy, Alex and Justine must contemplate lying to each other.

A Time to Tell Lies continues the story begun in Lucy.



How to Buy

The book is currently available in the Kindle Store. A paperback version is available on the Lulu site (occasionally discounted - see Promotions).  It can also be purchased from Amazon.


Red Tulips cover illustration  © Nevit Dilmen

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