Book Log 2010 #58: The Information Agent by Mark Mills

I think I'm developing a taste for World War II books set outside of the usual theaters. First there was Robert Wilson's The Company of Strangers, set in Portugal (and which, like all of his books, is excellent). Then it was Ken Follett's Hornet Flight, set in Denmark. Now there's this book, set on Malta during the earlier days of the war.

The main character (the information officer of the title) is tasked with keeping the propaganda front up for the British, mostly aimed at keeping the Maltese as allies in the face of Germany's bombing campaign against the island. He then gets dragged into the killing of a local woman, apparently by a British soldier. Facing official pressure to bury the case, the officer winds up undertaking his own investigation into what appears to be the latest in a line of serial killings. And on top of this he has his own romantic problems to deal with, though they soon enough become part of the case as well.

The strength of the book is its depiction of Malta at war, from the regular German attacks to the fatalism of the Britons on the island to the almost business as usual nature of the Maltese (who, historically, are used to the threat of invasion). The mystery itself unfolds at a nice pace, but I did feel that the ending was a little forced, with the actual killer cropping up out of the group of suspects almost at random. Admittedly I did read through the ending fairly quickly, but I did go back and re-read some sections to see if I'd missed something. Recommended, with an apology if my thinking about the ending is inaccurate.