Operation Kingfisher

Name: Operation Kingfisher
Rating: 4.29 (4319 reviews)

by Hilary Green

First published 2013

Amazon

4.3(4,319)

Southern Auvergne, 1943. Luke and Christine are the children of a French mother and British father, stranded in occupied France and increasingly exposed to arrest. They attempt to travel towards safety using a canal barge and an escape organisation called Operation Kingfisher. The line was designed to move downed Allied airmen towards Spain, but the teenagers need to use resistance routes in the opposite direction to reach family in Britain.

Betrayal prevents the planned escape and forces them into the Morvan with maquis fighters, where they carry messages, collect intelligence and take part in ambushes. Their father is secretly serving with the SOE, but neither child knows whether he can find them before German forces close the network. The novel combines a young-adult survival journey with the practical dangers of forged identities, local collaboration and clandestine movement through occupied France.