Introduction

In Crete during World War II, Alenka, a young woman who fights with the resistance against the brutal Nazi occupation, finds herself caught between her traitor of a brother and the man she loves, an undercover agent working for the Allies.

May 1941. German paratroopers launch a blitzkrieg from the air against Crete. They are met with fierce defiance, the Greeks fighting back with daggers, pitchforks, and kitchen knives. During the bloody eleven-day battle, Alenka, a young Greek woman, saves the lives of two Australian soldiers.

Jack and Teddy are childhood friends who joined up together to see the world. Both men fall in love with Alenka. They are forced to retreat with the tattered remains of the Allied forces over the towering White Mountains. Both are among the seven thousand Allied soldiers left behind in the desperate evacuation from Crete's storm-lashed southern coast. Alenka hides Jack and Teddy at great risk to herself. Her brother Axel is a Nazi sympathiser and collaborator and spies on her movements.

As Crete suffers under the Nazi jackboot, Alenka is drawn into an intense triangle of conflicting emotions with Jack and Teddy. Their friendship suffers under the strain of months of hiding and their rivalry for her love. Together, they join the resistance and fight to free the island, but all three will find themselves tested to their limits. Alenka must choose whom to trust and whom to love and, in the end, whom to save.

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Excerpt

VII

The walls of her uncle’s lyra shop were made of rough stone, and hung with stringed instruments of all shapes and sizes. Mandolins, bouzoukis, baglames, zithers, lyras.
Black-and-white photos hung crookedly from nails, a blue shirt and headscarf were flung over the back of a chair, and a shepherd’s crook made from wonderfully gnarled wood leant against the wall. An old table stood in the centre of the room, with tools scattered upon it, a lute mould, coils of catgut and wire, tattered rolls of music, curling spirals of wood shavings, a gluepot with a brush still in it. Alenka frowned. It was not like her uncle to leave his shop in such a mess. He had been interrupted at work. She tried the handle of the back door, but it was locked. ... view entire excerpt...

Discussion Questions

- The Greek resistance to the Nazis was one of the fiercest of the Second World War, and as a result the reprisals were among the most cruel. Did you know of this aspect of the war?
- Were you familiar with the Minotaur in the Labyrinth myth? Did you know it came from Crete?
- The myth is usually retold with the Greek hero Theseus at the centre of the tale, but Kate Forsyth draws upon older matriarchal versions in which the Cretan princess Ariadne is the true protagonist. Did you know that the myth was once much more female-centric? What do you think about the male reframing of the tale?
- In ‘The Crimson Thread’, it is not just the German occupying forces who were capable of doing terrible things – other characters show they too are capable of being monstrous. Did you find this more nuanced aspect of the novel to be surprising? Who was the true minotaur at the heart of the book?
- Who were your favourite and least favourite characters in the book?
- If ‘The Crimson Thread’ was to be turned into a movie, who would you choose to play the heroine Alenka?
- Alenka embroiders secret messages in code and so manages to smuggle out crucial information to the Allies. Kate Forsyth learnt how to embroider so that she could properly describe this ancient feminine art, and now loves it so much she embroiders every day. Why do you think embroidery and other traditional women’s arts such as weaving and quilt-making are considered mere crafts, while men’s creative occupations are more likely to be considered art?
- Have you ever walked a labyrinth? What was your experience like?

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