Jane Thynne
Author
Agent
Assistant
Melissa Tombere
MTombere@UnitedAgents.co.ukBiography
Jane Thynne was born in Venezuela and educated in London and at Oxford. She joined the BBC as a production trainee, and worked as a TV director. She then moved to Fleet Street, working at The Sunday Times, The Daily Telegraph and The Independent.
Jane has a passion for historical fiction and the research that involves. The first in the Clara Vine series, BLACK ROSES, became a number One Kindle Bestseller and was published by Simon & Schuster UK and Ballantine US. This was followed up by THE WORDS I NEVER WROTE (Ballantine US, Sharpe Books UK) and two alternative history novels under the pen name C.J. Carey, WIDOWLAND and QUEEN HIGH (Quercus UK and Sourcebooks US).
Her most recent novels, the Fox and Fry series, feature Harry Fox, a suspended MI5 surveillance operative, and Stella Fry, a former tutor, who are thrown together to solve mysterious murders on the eve of WW2. MIDNIGHT IN VIENNA (2024) and APPOINTMENT IN PARIS (2025) are both published by Quercus.
As well as writing books, Jane continues to freelance as a journalist, writing regularly for numerous British magazines and newspapers, and also appear as a broadcaster on Radio 4 and Sky. She has been a guest reader at the Arvon Foundation and sat on the broadcasting committee of the Society of Authors. She’s a patron of the Wimbledon Bookfest and lives in London.
Praise for APPOINTMENT IN PARIS, which was one of the Financial Times and The Times‘ Best Fiction Books of 2025:
“Blends a wholly convincing evocation of the period with a compelling narrative” The Times
“An enthralling read” Financial Times
“After their riveting debut in Vienna, Fox and Fry are back in compelling fashion to navigate their way through a shadowy world of espionage and murder. Danger and secrecy lurk in every page of this classy novel” ALEX GERLIS, author of EVERY SPY A TRAITOR
“Suspenseful, romantic, atmospheric and clever . . . Thynne’s storytelling is hugely enjoyable escapism” AMANDA CRAIG, author of THE THREE GRACES
“Deeply researched but lightly told, this book had me on the edge of my seat. Absolutely cracking stuff” CLARE MULLEY, author of AGENT ZO
Publications
Fiction
Historical espionage at its very best. Set in 1938 in London and Vienna, a tense and atmospheric thriller told against a backdrop of uncertainty and fear as World War Two threatens.
As war looms over Britain and there is talk of gas masks and blackout, people are understandably jumpy and anxious. Stella Fry, who’s been working in Vienna for a Jewish family, returns home with no job and a broken heart. She answers an advertisement from a famous mystery writer, Hubert Newman, who needs a manuscript typed. She takes on the job and is shocked the next day to learn of the writer’s sudden, unexplained death. She is even more surprised when, twenty-four hours later, she receives Newman’s manuscript and reads the Dedication:
To Stella, spotter of mistakes.
Harry Fox, formerly of Special Branch and brilliant at surveillance, has been suspended for some undisclosed misdemeanor. He has his own reasons for being interested in Hubert Newman. He approaches Stella Fry to share his belief that the writer’s death was no accident.
What’s more, since she was the last person to see Newman, she could be in danger herself.
TO SAVE HER OWN LIFE, WILL SHE SACRIFICE ANOTHER?
June 1940: the first summer of the war. Berlin is being bombed and nightly blackouts suffocate the city. Then France falls and a shadow descends.
A shadow has fallen over Clara Vine’s own life, too. She is an Anglo-German woman in a country that hates England. Then she is summoned to meet the Propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, who has decided that Clara should adopt a new role – as his spy.
Much as she dislikes the idea, Clara realises this might be the chance to find an escape route to England. But Goebbels has other ideas and soon Clara is drawn into a web that threatens to destroy her. As everything she holds dear is taken as ransom, she must fight to protect her family – and to survive…
Berlin, on the eve of war…
As soldiers muster on the streets, spies circle in the shadows and Lotti Franke, a young woman from the Faith and Beauty Society – the elite finishing school for Nazi girls – is found in a shallow grave.
Clara Vine, Anglo-German actress and spy, has been offered the most ambitious part she has ever played. And in her more secret life, British Intelligence has recalled her to London to probe reports that the Nazis and the Soviet Union are planning to make a pact.
Then Clara hears of Lotti’s death, and is determined to discover what happened to her. But what she uncovers is something of infinite value to the Nazi regime – the object that led to Lotti’s murder – and now she herself is in danger.
In a drama which traverses Berlin, Paris, Vienna and London, Clara Vine tries to keep her friends close, but finds her enemies are even closer.
Berlin, 1937. The city radiates glamour and ambition. But danger lurks in every shadow… Anna Hansen, a bride-to-be, is a pupil at one of Hitler’s notorious Nazi Bride Schools, where young women are schooled on the art of being an SS officer’s wife. Then, one night, she is brutally murdered and left in the gardens of the school. Her death will be hushed up and her life forgotten. Clara Vine is an actress at Berlin’s famous Ufa studios by day and an undercover British Intelligence agent by night. She knew Anna and is disturbed by news of her death. She cannot understand why someone would want to cover it up, but she soon discovers that Anna’s murder is linked to a far more ominous secret. With the newly abdicated Edward VIII and his wife Wallis set to arrive in Berlin, and the Mitford sisters dazzling on the social scene, Clara must work in the darkness to find the truth and send it back to London. It is a dangerous path she treads, and it will take everything she has to survive…
Set in Berlin in 1933, BLACK ROSES tells the story of Hitler’s decision to establish a Reich Fashion Bureau to be run by the wives of Nazi leaders. Clara Vine is an Anglo-German actress who comes into contact with the wives and gains their trust while spying on them for British intelligence. In the process she discovers a dramatic secret at the heart of the Nazi regime which threatens her life and the life of the man she loves.
