LUKE McCALLIN In Person With Paul

LUKE McCALLIN chats to Paul Burke about his new historical thriller WHERE GOD DOES NOT WALK, Gregor Reinhardt, WWI, Bosnia, inspirational literature.WHERE GOD DOES NOT WALK: THE WESTERN FRONT, JULY 1918. Gregor Reinhardt is a young lieutenant in a stormtrooper battalion on the Western Front when one of his subordinates is accused of murdering a group of officers, and then subsequently trying to take his own life. Not wanting to believe his friend could have done what he is accused of, Reinhardt begins to investigate. He starts to uncover the outline of a conspiracy at the heart of the German army, a conspiracy aimed at ending the war on the terms of those who have a vested interest in a future for Germany that resembles her past. The investigation takes him from the devastated front lines of the war, to the rarefied heights of Berlin society, and into the hospitals that treat those men who have been shattered by the stress and strain of the war. Along the way, Reinhardt comes to an awakening of the man he might be. A man freed of dogma, whose eyes have been painfully opened to the corruption and callousness all around him. A man to whom calls to duty, to devotion to the Fatherland and to the Kaiser, ring increasingly hollow...Luke McCallin was born in 1972 in Oxford, grew up in Africa, went to school around the world and has worked with the United Nations as a humanitarian relief worker and peacekeeper in the Caucasus, the Sahel, and the Balkans. His experiences have driven his writing, in which he explores what happens to normal people - those stricken by conflict, by disaster - put under abnormal pressures. He lives with his wife and two children in an old farmhouse in France in the Jura Mountains. He has a master's degree in political science, speaks French, and can just get by in Russian. When he's not working or writing, he enjoys reading history, playing the drums, and heading into the mountains for a run!Recommendations: In EnglishSebastian Faulks: BirdsongPat Barker: RegenerationJennifer Johnston: How Many Miles to Babylon?Timothy Findlay: The WarsFrederic Manning: Her Privates We The Abolutionist: John BoyneSebastian Barry: A Long, Long WayIn French Roland Dorgelès: Les croix de boisHenri Barbusse: Le feuGabriel Chevallier: La peuDavid Diop: Frère d'âme (‘At night all blood is black’ in English) Jean Amila: Le boucher des HurlusJean Rouaud: Les champs d’honneur Thierry Bourcy: a series of novels about Célestin Louise, a policeman who joins the French armyDidier Daeninckx: Le der des ders ('A very profitable war' in English, and an excellent graphic novel by Tardy)Patrick Pecherot: Tranchecaille (a brilliantly-written novel of a murder inquiry told through discordant and unsynchronised flashbacks, and terribly unreliable narrators)Jean-Christophe Rufin: Le collier rouge (also a film)Pierre Lemaitre: Au revoir là-haut ('The great swindle' in English: a film, and an excellent graphic novel, and the first novel in a trilogy that takes the reader up to the Second World War)GermanErich Maria Remarque: All Quiet on the Western Front, and The Way BackErnst Junger: Storm of Steel (a memoir, not a novelEpisode produced by Junkyard DogMusic courtesy of Southgate & LeighCProduced by Junkyard DogCrime TimeCrime Time FM is the official podcast ofGwyl Crime Cymru Festival 2023 & 2025CrimeFest 2023CWA Daggers 2023 & 2024 & National Crime Reading Month& Newcastle Noir 2023 and 20242024 Slaughterfest,

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