P.R. asked Michael Ridpath:

Hello Michael, I'm guessing you are neither a native of Iceland nor Germany, although you must have stayed in both when researching for your writing. My question is: which was harder to write with - Iceland set in your lifetime, or Germany set in the past which obviously you were unfamiliar with?

Michael Ridpath Interesting question! They both require different forms of research. Iceland involved visiting places and talking to people, but not a lot of reading. There is a limited amount of books about Iceland or novels set there in English. If you ask them in the right way, Icelanders can be extremely helpful.

On the other hand, while I visited Berlin, it looks much different than it had in 1938-40. And while I spoke to some Germans, they were not their grandparents. But there are lots of books published about Germany at the beginning of then war. Obscure memoirs were particularly useful: I read a great description of a Prussian wedding in Alexander Stahlberg’s memoirs, for example, which I drew on in Traitor’s Gate. The problem is that I have to note down every inconsequential detail about daily life and then index them all.

So, to answer your question, Germany set in the past was harder, because of the volume of reading, note taking and indexing.

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