Simon Tolkien is the grandson of JRR Tolkien and a director of the Tolkien Estate. He is also series consultant for the Amazon series, The Rings of Power. He studied Modern History at Trinity College, Oxford and went on to become a London barrister specializing in criminal defense. He left the law to become a writer in 2001 and has written five novels which mine the history of the first half of the last century to explore dark subjects – capital punishment, the Holocaust, the London Blitz and the Battle of the Somme. He is now working on a book about American volunteers who sacrificed so much for their ideals in the Spanish Civil War.
'No Man's Land'
"From the slums of London to the riches of an Edwardian country house; from the hot, dark seams of a Yorkshire coal mine to the exposed terrors of the trenches, Adam Raine’s journey from boy to man is set against the backdrop of a society violently entering the modern world."
Washington Post: ‘a barnburner of a novel ... a haunting fictionalization of a pivotal episode in a hellish war.’
NPR: ‘a page-turner, an opera, a costume drama to binge watch.’
'Orders From Berlin'
"London is under attack and a mole burrowed deep inside MI6 has orders from Berlin to assassinate Winston Churchill. Hitler believes that with Churchill out of the way England will make peace. Only Detective Trave and the daughter of a man murdered by the mole are in a position to foil the plot, but time is running out and the odds are stacked against them."
'The King Of Diamonds'
"Inspector Trave of the Oxford Police, last seen in The Inheritance, heads the manhunt for David, whom he first brought to justice two years earlier. But Trave’s suspicions lead him to Katya’s uncle Titus Osman, a rich diamond dealer, and his sinister brother-in-law, Franz Claes, who has gone to great lengths to hide his former ties with the Nazis."