The Final Act of Daphne Devine is is the final part of the Daphne Devine trilogy which began with The Grand Illusion and last year’s The Great Deception.
Daphne and one-time lover Jack have been sent to deliver The Grimoire, a centuries-old book filled with mysticism and spells. Posing as a rare book dealer, she will hand the book to a prominent SS officer and send the Nazis into a spiral where their very beliefs are turned against them.
But this is war. Behind every corner a betrayal is lurking and your enemies are often closer than you think. There are some things we cannot foresee, and these are the things that can kill us.
Is this the mission where there can be no return?
Syd writes
The Final Act of Daphne Divine is the third instalment in my World War II series which looks at how the British Security Service exploited the Nazi’s obsession with the occult. A large part of the action takes place in Heinrich Himmler’s notorious occult castle at Wewelsburg.
Wewelsberg Castle
To research her book, Syd travelled to Wewelsburg Castle.
Wewelsburg was from 1934 used as a school for the SS elite. Himmler remodelled it in a strange, symbol-drenched style which married Arthurian legend with Germanic and Nordic rune ‘magic’. Himmler was obsessed with the occult, mysticism and esoterica, he had already commissioned Otto Rahn to search for the Holy Grail (think Indiana Jones).
In 1935, year after he leased the castle, Himmler founded the Ahnenerbe, an SS division, which undertook research into folklore and prehistory. He also set up the Hexenkartothek (Witch Card Index) to compile information on the German witch hunts.
On the second storey, the Obergruppenführersaal, a mosaiced runic sun wheel, in black marble, dominates the floor. The symbol was co-opted in the 1990s by extreme right wing neo-Nazi groups, who gave it the name the ‘Black Sun’. To avoid any ‘celebration’ or ‘romanticising’ of the thing, while there you are closely monitored. All visitors to the North Tower are now forbidden to take photographs.
Speaking of her visit to the crypt, Syd said
The crypt’s atmosphere stays with you, as does the knowledge that you have just visited a site steeped in so much blood. Any writer or reader with a pinch of imagination cannot stop themselves from wondering – what happened within those walls? What nasty rituals took place? Why is there a pit? What the hell is in it?
Though Himmler tried to bury his secrets in the ruins of the castle, some things have a way of coming to light. If you can bear the horror, you can find out what Syd made of it in The Final Act of Daphne Devine.
“The Final Act of Daphne Devine” is out now. All text and photographs copyright the author. Syd originally wrote about her journey to and around Wewelsburg Castle at Shotsmag.
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