Operation Tulip is the third and final book in Deborah Swift’s World War 2 Secret Agent series. Our heroine, Nancy Callaghan, started the war with the SOE, as a cipher clerk at their offices in Baker Street. She went on, though, to become a field agent, working as a radio operator in occupied Holland.

Operation Tulip is essentially a spy thriller. I won’t detail the plot because of spoilers. I hope you’ll read it and enjoy it for yourself. It really is a very good read. Deborah Swift is one of those writers who can really hook you into a story and (very unusually for me) I twice nearly missed my stop while reading Operation Tulip on the Tube.

Swift not only tells a good yarn but packs in a lot of history. It’s fair to say that she doesn’t like the Nazis. This was once such a given that it seems odd to be remarking on it, but nowadays so many people are prepared to suggest that extreme right wing politics has something going for it that it is worth reminding ourselves what happened when Europe last decided to give fascism a go. Swift is unsparing in her descriptions of Nazi atrocities. As her historical note (well worth reading) points out, in the winter of 1944/5, when this story is set, more than 18,000 Dutch civilians starved to death with a further 980,000 classed as malnourished. In places, Operation Tulip is not an easy read.

Given the amount of historical detail, I would have welcomed more about the relationship between the SS and the Gestapo. I suspect my interest in the details of the organisation of the Nazi party and its agencies is not widely shared but lots of people are interested and, given that both the SS and the Gestapo feature a lot in the story, I worried about the details of the relationship between the two. I would have liked more about this, even if Swift had felt it would have been better dealt with in her historical note.

Swift is such a good storyteller that even a subplot which sees her boyfriend mounting a one-man rescue operation across the allied frontline manages to carry you along, although here we are moving rapidly away from the nitty gritty detail of SOE operations into James Bond territory. It’s all terribly readable, though, and certainly adds even more excitement and tension to an already gripping story.

In summary, this is a thrilling spy story set against a historically detailed background. I enjoyed it Immensely and I’m sure many others will too.

I picked up this book not realising it was the final instalment in a series, but it really didn’t matter as the story is perfectly self-contained. Not only that, it gripped me from the first moments, with a breathless assassination attempt in wartime Amsterdam which both sets the scene and from which everything else flows.

The depth of Deborah Swift’s research is incredible. I felt I was in the Netherlands in those last, desperate days of the German occupation, surrounded by starvation, cruelty, and the difficult choices the population had to make. In this febrile atmosphere SOE operative Nancy must take on her most dangerous – and chilling – assignment: befriend a senior SS officer, and if necessary bed him to achieve the resistance’s objectives.

This book is beautifully written, a fine balance between the detail needed to create the characters’ world and the action that propels the narrative forwards and makes it so hard to put down. I was completely immersed in Nancy’s world and it is an experience which will stay with me for a very long time.

The third novel I’ve read by this author whose focus is tales of subterfuge in the resistance in WW2. This story picks up the exploits of Nancy undercover in Holland towards the end of the war. There are lots of things going wrong and she finds herself in real danger. However, Tom her boyfriend is coming to help her … I’m not sure how much I believed in certain elements of this story. I did find learning about the Dutch resistance interesting.

What an excellent continuation in the series this book was, although you really could read it as a standalone book too. Just reading about the desperation had you really thinking of what it was like back in Holland at the time awaiting being helped by the Allies and not knowing if it would come or not. A great storyline that kept you hooked from the off and great characters too outwith Nancy and Tom. Highly recommended!

The story is about Nancy, an agent in Nazi occupied Holland, and I can't say any more without spoiling the novel, however I can say that I loved it, and the characters of Nancy and Tom, and that this was written by one of my favourite authors. Deborah Swift has written many historical novels, many of which I have read, set in earlier periods than this one, which was set in the Second World War. I wasn't sure I would enjoy it as much as novels set in earlier periods, but I did, possibly even more, at least as much. The tale gripped me straight away and I found it difficult to put down until I had finished it. Highly recommended. I will now read all her novels set in a later time period, having already read one set in Nazi occupied Norway. She seems to be as good writing fiction about the Second World War as she is in novels set in an earlier periods.

If like me, you've been eagerly anticipating the last book of the series, it's been worth the wait. By the end of the first page, I was completely hooked and my blood pressure was already rising. Deborah Swift brings the series full circle, incorporating the major characters from The Silk Code and setting them directly into the belly of the beast in northern Holland. Even the original silk code comes back into play. The story begins in October 1944, after the failure of Operation Market Garden, which left the northern part of Holland completely cut off. There is no electricity, no food, no fuel, no transportation, and the Germans are taking their revenge on the Dutch people for the loss of territory south of the Rhine River. This is where we find Nancy, on her 4th mission to Holland, trapped along with everyone else. The Resistance has been decimated by the Nazis and its surviving members are demoralized and leaderless.

The mood in this book is one of utter desperation. The war has been ongoing for 6 years, with the country's infrastructure and beautiful medieval architecture destroyed by bombings from the Germans and the Allies. Nancy is running on empty. I believe she takes unimaginable risks now because she doesn't think she will survive but feels compelled to do whatever she can. (The British government had no plans to help their SOE agents escape from the nightmare in Holland.) There are heartbreaking scenes with starving children, particularly one where they are fighting over a dead rat to eat. I loved the older Red Cross nurse, Betje, who refused to stop taking risks to save people because "every single person I save is one more to testify against them when that time comes."

I learned so much from this series, thanks to Deborah Swift's impeccable research...from Englandspiel to the training of SOE agents, the use of black propaganda, and now the Hunger Winter. Her powerful writing style made me feel like I was right there with Nancy, experiencing the war years with her. I hope she'll start a new WW II series and I highly recommend this one!

My thanks to NetGalley and HQ Digital for providing the ARC. All opinions and the review are entirely my own.

3.5 stars

Operation Tulip is the third book in the WW2 Secret Agents series. This book returns to the work of the resistance fighters in Holland which featured in book one of the series. It also draws in some of the characters from book two which focused more on the home front war.

In this book the resistance cells are falling apart, areas of Holland have been saved by the allied forces but much is left under German control. Food has almost run out and both sides are desperate to save themselves. Secret agent Nancy is given one last job: to act as a Nazi supporter and live within the enemy camp accessing vital information which might help save lives.

As a fan of resistance-themed war stories, I have been keenly following this series. I liked the details about the struggles of the people, the liberation of Holland and the tales of the brave men and women who continued the fight when there was little hope of success. On occasions I thought that some of the risks that both Nancy and boyfriend Tom took were rather naïve and unlikely for the intense state of affairs; sadly it left me a little disappointed with this final book in the series.

This is a beautiful book and it is so amazing, the story is so lovely and very enjoyable to read. i loved everything about this book and i would recommend to anyone who loves reading to give this book a go. it is a lovely book and i will read other books from this author.