Remembrance Day is World War Two veteran Georges Laeken-Duvalier's intense and dramatic story, beginning in May 1940 just before the German invasion of Belgium and France and continues through the Second World War until the 1950s. The story takes its starting point on Armistice Day, 11 November 2011, at the Cenotaph in London. Duvalier meets his old friend Harry Simmons. As the two war veterans begin to refresh old memories, Duvalier cannot hold back his vivid memories of a long and dramatic life. Each book represents a vital period in Duvalier's life: Caught in a Whirlwind takes the reader back to May 1940, where a young Lieutenant Laeken-Duvalier, an Anglo-Belgian volunteer in the Belgian Army, finds himself in the middle of The Battle of Belgium. The Belgian surrender at Antwerp marks the beginning of a new phase in his life. With a small handful of fellow soldiers, he manages to escape from a Stalag in the Rhineland and return to England. The first book introduces some of the very important people, both civilians and fellow officers, who assist the escaped POWs, often at great risk to their own life, and at the same time describes the key character's growing awareness of the huge importance of civilian resistance to the Nazi occupation in Europe. The second book, Behind Enemy Lines, takes us a couple of years forward, to the year 1943. Now an SOE agent and a military intelligence officer, Duvalier is suddenly confronted with a terrible setback as his networks in the Low Countries are unravelled by German counterintelligence. As a result, under strict orders from the War Cabinet and his new Director at the SOE, Major General Gubbins, Duvalier is dropped over Belgium together with a fellow agent and radio operator, Keith Paisley, an important person in his future life. Both agents become witnesses to the Nazi roundup of resistance groups. The second book thus describes some of his resistance operations on the ground as well as, in September 1944, the thorough preparations for the large Allied operation, Market Garden, and the ensuing battles in which Duvalier get wounded. In the last phase of the war in Europe, in April 1945, Duvalier returns to the Netherlands to find out what actually happened to his first network, the one that had been rounded up. His investigation in the Netherlands, recently liberated, becomes somewhat of an eye-opener as he discovers the complexity of war; the politics and the betrayals; but also the unexpected help from a few former enemies, now captured. Inside one of the satellite camps of Bergen-Belsen, against all odds, he locates the man, a Jewish prisoner, who holds the vital data he needs to ultimately tie up the loose ends and clear up the secrets that up till then had been nagging deeply at him. Pax Julia marks a transition from World War Two to the Cold War, a time when Major Duvalier, gets appointed Head of a special section, Section D, inside MI6. Secretly, during the years 1946-49 he actively supports Haganah, against the British government, and becomes a true ally of the first Israeli secret networks which help him place moles inside the Soviet Union and its satellites. But, most importantly, in the middle of a deep personal crisis and moral self-doubt, he finds the love of his life and a much needed inner peace. Hence the title of the third book that refers to the name of his wife, Julia. The Suez Canal Crisis in 1956 finally leads Duvalier to resign from British service and move back to the land of his childhood, Belgium, after a set of betrayals. The aftermath of the Suez Canal Crisis thus comes to mark the beginning of his new life as an independent agent and private investigator, inspiring him to found a detective bureau in Brussels.
About the Author: Steen Alexander is a pseudonym for Steen A. Nielsen, a novelist and publisher. He has a background in academic life and business consultancy and is now dedicating himself to independent research and creative writing. His aim is to write fiction across different genres, always with the focus on human dignity and emotional depth in people suddenly confronted with tough or complex challenges. In addition to literature, his academic interests are psychology and politics, language and history. He regularly teaches within these fields, currently on a voluntary basis. Steen A. Nielsen has an international background. Trilingual, born in Schleswig, Denmark, he is both a Danish and German speaker; he was also raised as an English-speaker. He is a linguist from the University of Copenhagen, a political scientist from Sciences Po and Sorbonne (Paris IV) and a Ph.D. in International History from the London School of Economics (2000).