>HISTORY LESSONS: NESBO AND HAMMETT

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Hagen placed his hands behind his back. 

“What do you know about the Thirty Years War?”

“Not enough, I suppose.”

The Redeemer: Jo Nesbo

The fat man screwed up his eyes and asked: “What do you know, sir, about the Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem, later called the Knights of Rhodes and other things?”

Spade waved his cigar. “Not much-only what I remember from history in school-Crusaders or something.”

The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett

>A MYSTERIOUS BOOKING: THE WAR IN BURMA

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A few weeks ago BEFORE I had read any of The Redeemer by Jo Nesbo we booked a short break at Chindit House an excellent luxury bed and breakfast in Glastonbury, Somerset. 

The house was named Chindit House, when it was part of Millfield School, by the housemaster who had fought with the Chindits in Burma.

Imagine my surprise when I reached the passage in The Redeemer:

Hagen ran his forefinger, over the window frame and studied the result with displeasure. “In 1942, a mere hundred thousand Japanese soldiers conquered Burma.”

The Japanese did in the words of Harry Hole “lose the war” and in Burma that was due among other factors to the efforts of the Chindits under their charismatic commander Orde Wingate.