Two Storm Wood

Two Storm Wood

Uncover an unsettling mystery of World War One in the The Times Thriller of the Year

Summary

THE GUNS ARE SILENT. THE DEAD ARE NOT

'The world has been waiting for a worthy successor to Sebastian Faulks' Birdsong - now Philip Gray has delivered it' David Young, author of Stasi Child.

1919. On the battlefields of northern France, the guns of the Great War are silent. Special battalions now face the task of gathering up the dead for mass burial.

Amy Vanneck's fiancé is one soldier lost amongst many. She heads to France, determined to discover what became of the man she loved.

Meanwhile, Captain Mackenzie cannot bring himself to go home until his fallen comrades are laid to rest. His task is upended when a gruesome discovery is made beneath the ruins of a German strongpoint.

It soon becomes clear that what Mackenzie has uncovered is a war crime of inhuman savagery. As the dark truth leaches out, both he and Amy are drawn into the hunt for a psychopath, one for whom the atrocity at Two Storm Wood is not an end, but a beginning.


*Longlisted for the 2023 CWA Historical Dagger Award*

'An atmospheric portrayal of the pity of the war' The Times, Books of the Year

Reviews

  • Although the novel is deftly plotted and the atmosphere all distorting fog and claustrophobic dugouts, its achievement lies in Gray's finely worked portraits of the pity of war - those damaged by conflict and those who have to deal with its mind-altering consequences.
    The Times

About the author

Philip Gray

Philip Gray studied modern history at Cambridge University, and went on to work as a journalist in Madrid, Rome and Lisbon. He has tutored in crime writing at City University in London and serves as a director at an award-winning documentary film company, specialising in science and history.

He lives in London.

https://www.philipgraybooks.com/
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