Dancing with Eva

In April 1945 Hitler's bunker in Berlin was the last place Edith Mecklenburg wanted to be. But Edith had no choice: as secretary to Eva Braun, Hitler's mistress and -- for a few final, desperate hours -- his wife, Edith had to see it through to the bitter end.

Edith was one of the lucky few. She not only got out alive but made a new life for herself in England. Sixty years on, now a widow and grandmother, the Bunker is almost forgotten. But the past has not forgotten her. Hans, a soldier she knew from those dark days, has written asking if he may visit. Obsessed with the war, he has spent the intervening decades tracking down all who were there, and who survived. In her reluctant raking-over of old coals, Edith finds embers that still burn, and in the act of remembrance a very current threat . . .

About the Author :
Alan Judd is the author of two biographies and seventeen novels, three of which have been filmed. He has won the Guardian Fiction award, the Heinemann award and the Royal Society of Literature’s Winifred Holtby award. His novels include the Charles Thoroughgood spy series and A Fine Madness, featuring the life and death of Christopher Marlowe, poet, playwright and spy. He also wrote The Quest for C, the authorized biography of Mansfield Cumming, founder of MI6, for which he was granted access to Cumming’s diary. He has reviewed widely and has been a regular columnist for the Telegraph, the Spectator and the Oldie. He is an Honorary Fellow of Keble College, Oxford, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Review :
"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