by Mark Simmons | Feb 14, 2025 | Uncategorized
Yesterday the 13 February singed the contract with Pen & Sword books to publish my new title ‘With the Commandos: The Drive into Hitler’s Reich, November 1944-June 1945.’ Hopefully will be out for the 80th anniversary so the summer. It tells the... by Mark Simmons | Feb 12, 2025 | Uncategorized
My two Cyprus books have been selling well ‘From the Foam of the Sea’ a novel set largely on the island first published in 2007 and now out in a new edition. It has been compared to the work of Alistair MacLean and Desmoid Bagley. My non-fiction book The... by Mark Simmons | Jan 17, 2025 | Uncategorized
Let’s give the book its full title ‘Agent Cicero: Hitler’s most successful Spy’ was first published by Spellmount, an imprint of The History Press in 2014 up to then my third book with them. I loved the cover and still do. This book was a slow... by Mark Simmons | Jan 9, 2025 | Uncategorized
I always like to re-read an old favourite book during the year the last book of last year I read was John Steinbeck’s masterpiece East of Eden. Looking at my old battered paperback edition it is the 5th time I have read it. Although I’m sure somehow it is... by Mark Simmons | Dec 13, 2024 | Uncategorized
So we played Rangers again last night almost 62 years to the day and I have been supporting the Lillywhites that long. Nine years old I was living in Scotland in 1962 Dad was in the Navy serving on the submarine depot ship HMS Maidstone, at the Faslane Submarine base.... by Mark Simmons | Dec 9, 2024 | Uncategorized
The author Nevil Shute was many things in his varied life other than a much loved writer, who can forget classics like The Far Country or A Town like Alice. Nevil Shute Norway (17 January 1899 – 12 January 1960) was an English novelist and aeronautical... by Mark Simmons | Dec 7, 2024 | Uncategorized
by Mark Simmons | Nov 6, 2024 | Uncategorized
‘Operation Judgement’. ‘During the attack a hundred thousand rounds were fired at us but only one aircraft was shot down in each wave. I got hit underneath by one half-inch machine gun bullet. It was the pilot’s job to aim the torpedo. Nobody was given a specific... by Mark Simmons | Sep 15, 2024 | Uncategorized
by Mark Simmons | Aug 13, 2024 | Uncategorized
1 The 39 Steps John Buchan. I think it has to be on everybody’s list written by Buchan while he was ill in bed at the start of the First World War and published in 1915. It has great pace and a riveting plot no wonder the soldiers in the trenches were enthralled, and... by Mark Simmons | Aug 12, 2024 | Uncategorized
In August 1909, a semi retired, Naval Commander aged fifty, and living on a houseboat near Southampton devising boom defences for rivers and harbours, received an odd written request. The letter was from Rear Admiral Bethell, Director of Naval Intelligence. It advised... by Mark Simmons | Aug 8, 2024 | Uncategorized
The great American writer William Faulkner in his unique literary voice wrote of Pickett’s charge in his novel Intruder in the Dust and tells us the whole South wanted and still wants to be there at Gettysburg on the 3 July 1863: ‘…the brigades are in position... by Mark Simmons | Jul 5, 2024 | Uncategorized
by Mark Simmons | Jun 7, 2024 | Uncategorized
D-Day Commando The Story of 48 Commando Royal Marines, on the 6th of June 1944. 48 Royal Marine Commando was the last such unit to be formed in World War Two, and the first to land on D-Day. Lance-Corporal Ted Brooks arrived on Nan Red Beach on the... by Mark Simmons | May 8, 2024 | Uncategorized
by Mark Simmons | Apr 18, 2024 | Uncategorized
Portuguese rights of Ian Fleming and Operation Golden Eye sold by Casemate well done to the publisher. Chapter Ten is devoted to the espionage war in Portugal during WWII fought between the Allies and the Axis in the neutral country. Also both sides coveted the... by Mark Simmons | Mar 30, 2024 | Uncategorized
Due out soon the IV of the Rob Nicolson books Roundabout following on from Operation Flamenco although like all the Rob Nicolson books it is a stand alone. In this book he takes on the Criminal Golden Circle hell bent on world domination the action moves from the... by Mark Simmons | Feb 10, 2024 | Uncategorized
The Soldier If I should die, think only this of me That there’s a corner of a foreign field That is for ever England. there shall be In that rich earth a richer dust concealed A dust whom England bore, shared, made one, Gave once, her flowers to love, her ways...
by Mark Simmons | Jan 23, 2024 | Uncategorized
Prinz Eugen lucky ship of the German Navy. The heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, third ship of the Hipper class, was launched at Kiel from the Gaarden dockyard of the Krupp Germania works on 22August 1938.The Ship was named after Prince Eugene of Savoy... by Mark Simmons | Dec 5, 2023 | Uncategorized
