Dancing with Eva

"Elegantly written... There is freshness and immediacy in Judd's story of Eva's former secretary, Edith, and a Nazi soldier she knew in those dark days. The tension of revelations to come is skilfully calibrated" Sunday Times 11/5 'Dancing with Eva has the kind of cunningly crafted plot that it would be criminal to give away. In lesser hands, the denouement would be crude, sensational; but Judd finds real poignancy in the lives of two frail octogenarians confronting the demons of their shared past. The vignettes of Hitler and Eva Braun are very good: the once charismatic leader, reduced to rambling monologues, and his younger, sprightlier mistress. But it is the wintry heroine, and her groping for a kind of redemption, which hold centre stage' Sunday Telegraph 29/4 An expertly controlled piece of work... The storytelling keeps the story taut right to the end' Observer 29/4 'Judd's depiction of life in the Fuhrerbunker is fascinating, marked by a novelist's descriptive talent and a historian's eye for detail' Daily Telegraph 14/4 'A well-written book... there are along the way some excellent accounts of Hitler's last days' Justin Cartwright, The Spectator 14/4 'The novel abruptly changes in the final chapters. What has hitherto been an admirably eloquent and concise rehearsal of a familiar story becomes altogether darker and more original' Independent 21/5 'The novel's slightly theatrical denouement provides a convincing conclusion to Judd's well-structured psychological drama' TLS 25/5 'Judd succeeds in retelling a story that could never be less than compelling' Sunday Times 28/5 'Judd's flawless, absorbing novel works both as a thriller, a thought-provoking essay on guilt and remembrance, and a fascinating portrait of life in the Fuhrer's court' Mail on Sunday 22/7 'The titular Eva is Eva Braun, Hitler's mistress and last-minute wife, and her dance partner is her fictitious secretary Edith, the heroine of this novel' Observer 20/4 'Edith Mecklenburg, one of the remaining survivors of Hitler's bunker, is living out her years in blissful anonymity in the English countryside. The arrive of Hans, a former Nazi officer and old acquaintance, forces her to rake over her memories of her time as secretary to Eva Braun, Hitler's mistress, confront her enduring guilt and discover why Hans has returned to her after all these years. In a series of vivid set pieces, Edith reconstructs her time with the Nazi High Command, from the afternoons spent at the Fuhrer's mountain headquarters to Hitler and Eva's macabre wedding ceremony in the Berlin bunker as Russian bombs fall overhead' Sunday Times 4/5