Andrew Sangster

My Doctorate is in Modern European history, and I often ease the tension of the ghastly nature of my research into twentieth century history by researching people and events little known about. This propelled me to write on Beria, Stalin’s head of the NKVD, and then Mussolini’s son-in-law and foreign minister Ciano executed by his father-in-law. I wrote on Field Marshal Alan Brooke who is hardly mentioned in general history books but was Churchill’s right-hand man in strategy. This led me to Churchill’s Chief-of-Staff General Pug Ismay of whom little was known. I was equally fascinated by the defendants at the Nuremberg Trial asking who each one was, what they did to land up in court. Nearly all my books are about the lesser known but important figures in history, and I write not to make money but out of sheer curiosity.