A graduate of the University of Leeds, Peter was a professional soldier for 25 years, commanding a battalion and serving as a staff officer at the highest level in the Ministry of Defence prior to undertaking a successful business career. Werner is his fifth book.
He published his first thriller, The Angry Island, in 1986. It was set within the 1970s/80s Greek/Turkish conflict on Cyprus. It was followed in 1990 by the The Silent War, a Cold War thriller. Both were accepted by a literary agent and published conventionally, both were successful in terms of sales volume and financially. The Angry Island was a WHSmith’s “Book of the Month”.
More recently, and now semi-retired, Peter wanted to publish another thriller, a tribute based on the true story of his Uncle Jan’s escape from Poland and across wartime Europe to UK in 1939/1940. This book was Jan (2017).
Based on the (mostly five star) reviews, some likening Jan to a Follett or an Archer, and with a number of requests for a sequel, Peter decided to make Jan the first of a trilogy – all three WW2 historical thrillers. Hedda followed in 2023. Werner is the last of the trilogy.
Where does the trilogy fit on the shelf? Between Sebastian Faulkes’ Charlotte Gray, Alex Gerlis’ Best of our Spies, and Kate Quinn’s The Alice Network. Werner also aligns with Robert Radcliffe’s Under an English Heaven.
We hope you enjoy Werner, the last in the WW2 Jan trilogy.
Peter Haden features on www.writing.ie, read the full article here
Authority Magazine
Read Peter’s interview with Authority Magazine here
Book Three in the WW2 Jan Trilogy
Autumn 1941. A German agent parachutes into England. Her mission: to replace the espionage circuit captured by British intelligence. The Abwehr target: the US Army Air Corps.
Spencer Almeter, a coloured American, finds discrimination within his own service and is brutally attacked over his relationship with a white English girl.
The USA pursues bombing raids over Nazi Germany.
German born Werner is deployed by the British Special Operations Executive to conduct sabotage and espionage in Munich. He falls in love with a German student in an anti-Hitler resistance movement.
An action packed story of lives and love affairs in the darkest times of the Second World War.
Book Review: Werner by Peter Haden
Part of The Jan Trilogy: Book Three
Werner is the third instalment of the Jan Trilogy. In this concluding volume, author Peter Haden brings his richly imagined wartime saga to a gripping and sophisticated conclusion. Haden clearly has a gift for unerring historical research and narrative momentum. In this novel, the author has created a gripping tale of loyalty, identity and shifting hopes and goals, all set against the complex and often heartbreaking backdrop of World War II.
The story follows Werner Scholtz, an ex-SS Sturmbannführer who has defected and now works for British Intelligence. His chief focus is on countering German military intelligence infiltration in wartime England. Secondary characters, such as Margaret Minogue, are vividly drawn and serve to deepen the emotional stakes. The whole hangs together as it cracks along at a riveting pace.
Haden’s tale takes us to Germany, England, occupied France and Ireland. This global span adds realism and punch since the author also incorporates actual historical events, ideologies and establishments. Haden has a knack for making his prose fluent and evocative, which adds veracity and keeps the tension taut. Not every writer is as skilled with dialogue either – Haden immerses us with great accuracy in the era in which his tale is set—this makes the tale convincing and absorbing. The intimate stakes of his characters’ lives are believable and intriguing, to a degree where the reader remains completely absorbed by and invested in them.
Peter Haden’s writing style is authoritative and clear, while offering historical depth, accuracy and psychological insight. It also raises moral questions, yet never trips over into any kind of preachy terrain. This makes it an intelligent book, not only entertaining but grounded in the questions we all ask ourselves, such as those pertaining to what it means to be human.
Werner is an absorbing, finely wrought novel that will appeal to readers of character-driven narratives and historical/wartime fiction. The novel certainly holds its own as a standalone but can be even more appreciated by those who have read Jan and Hedda too.
Highly recommended.
Colleen Figg – Editor
Book One in the WW2 Jan Trilogy
After the severe depression of the 1920s, Jan, a young Pole, is forced to seek work just across the border. His father and sister are brutally killed during the German invasion of Poland, and his brother remains on their small farm to assist the partisans.
As Nazi persecution increases, Jan is asked to make a desperate flight to safety with a young girl called Renate, his employer’s German-Jewish daughter who has been offered shelter on a farm near the Belgian border. After a frightening drive across wartime Nazi Germany, Jan eventually reaches England.
Following specialist military training, he undertakes two missions: first with the partisans in Poland and then rejoining Renate to report on the build-up of German forces behind the Western front.
In a dramatic climax, Jan and Renate are captured by the Gestapo and must escape in order to be smuggled across the border to Belgium and England.
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