Guest Post (and a Giveaway!): Kate Parker & Deadly Rescue

Please join me in welcoming Kate Parker to the blog today to share a fascinating glimpse at history and how it relates to her new historical cozy mystery, Deadly Rescue!

DEADLY RESCUE by Kate Parker
SERIES: Deadly #9
GENRE: Historical Cozy Mystery
PUBLISHER: JDP Press
RELEASE DATE: September 20, 2022
PAGES: 251

As the Phony War morphs into the Blitzkrieg, two British intelligence officers risk getting trapped behind enemy lines in the ninth Deadly mystery from USA Today Bestselling author Kate Parker

April, 1940. Hitler is invading Denmark on Tuesday. Olivia Redmond has only a weekend to bring a Nobel Prize winning chemist and his war-altering research to Britain. The scientist and his wife want to leave, but their troublesome daughter will do anything to stop her parents from departing.

The scientist’s wife was close friends with Olivia’s long dead mother and wants to talk about her, in stark contrast to Olivia’s father who won’t mention his wife. Olivia feels protective toward the invalid woman with her photos and details of Olivia’s mother’s life and wants to get her to safety.

When the daughter’s German fiancé is murdered, the police refuse to let anyone depart until they find the killer. If Olivia wants to escape Denmark with the chemist and his breakthroughs, she will have to unmask the killer before the Nazis stop her forever.

Deadly Rescue, book nine of the Deadly Series, is for fans of World War II era spy thrillers and classical cozy mysteries, of intrepid lady sleuths with determination and smarts. No explicit cursing, violence, or sex.

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Other Featured Books in This Series

Invasion!

by Kate Parker, author of Deadly Rescue

On Thursday, April 4, 1940, Admiral Canaris, the head of the German Abwehr, or military intelligence, notified neutral Denmark and Norway that the German military would invade them on the following Tuesday, April 9.

And all because of neutral Sweden.

Germany relied heavily on Swedish iron ore to build their military tanks and weapons. The only way to get this iron ore was to move it from northern Sweden to the coast of Norway and then ship it by sea to Germany.

Britain was at war with Germany, although up to that time not much fighting had gone on. But it was in Britain’s best interests to see that Swedish iron ore didn’t make it to Germany. So the British Navy and Air Force had started attacking German ships carrying iron ore.

Shipping the iron ore would be much easier for Germany if they controlled Norway and their ports so they could fight back against British attacks. Norway was neutral, but if it was a choice between honoring Norwegian neutrality and getting iron ore to Germany, Germany was going to look out for its own interests first.

That has been the choice of nations since time began.

There was one small problem: Denmark. Denmark was also neutral and without much that the Germans wanted beside their agricultural produce. But if you’re going to Norway from Germany, geography says you’re going through Denmark to get there.

So the Germans decided to invade Denmark at the same time. Sort of a global warfare BOGO.

The idea behind announcing the invasion five days early was to give the two Nordic governments a chance to agree to being taken over without blood spilled or a cost in bullets and machinery. Canaris had seen the incredible damage done to Poland six months earlier when the Germans invaded and objected to warfare against civilians. Given the opportunity, he took it to allow Denmark and Norway to avoid similar destruction.

Denmark is flat. There are no natural barriers to slow down troops or tanks and they capitulated almost from the first moment. Norway is mountainous and decided to fight back, knowing tanks would be useless there.

On April 9, the Germans invaded both countries. In Denmark, the most successful armed response was from the King’s Royal Guard at Amalienborg Palace, the king’s residence in Copenhagen. They repulsed the attack there until ordered to stand down by the government.

In exchange for capitulation, the Danes won political independence in domestic matters and saved themselves from a bombing campaign similar to the attacks on Poland and Norway.

This is the background against which Deadly Rescue was written. There were four days, between the fourth and the ninth, when people who were aware of what was coming as well as people who had skills that the Allies wanted had time to escape. There were still commercial airplane flights between southern England and Copenhagen at this time as well as ferry traffic between Esbjerg, Denmark and Harwich, England. All traffic stopped on April 9.

And Canaris, the admiral who warned Denmark and Norway? Apparently, Hitler was fonder of bombing and destruction than Canaris. The admiral was eventually put under house arrest and then sent to a concentration camp where he was executed in April, 1945 by hanging. Disagreeing with Hitler was not a smart thing to do during the Third Reich.

Since she was unable to build a time machine in her backyard, Kate Parker immerses herself in research and then creates the world that lives inside each book that she writes. Her favorite place is London and her time travel destination is anywhere from the late Victorian era through World War II. Since she lives in the Carolinas with her daughter and a 95-pound puppy, the practical side of her is thankful for air conditioning and all the modern comforts of life. Comforts she will take with her if she ever figures out how to build her time machine.

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What about you? What makes you want to read Deadly Rescue by Kate Parker?