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@mybarkingdogs @bookstodon

You could also take inspiration from the spy novels of Alan Furst. Furst's writing follows a pattern, but it's a pattern I enjoy reading so I don't mind.

Most of his books are set in Europe before or during the Second World War, during the rise of fascism. His protagonists are usually people disrupted from their lives by fascism: a Bulgarian peasant whose family are killed on the orders of a landowner-turned-ultranationalist, an apolitical French filmmaker who learns the necessity of solidarity, a Polish cartographer turned conscript turned insurgent.

They fight fascism, and they accept the help of the western allies and the USSR, but those foreign benefactors are always shown to be unreliable and untrustworthy. "Who can you trust" is often a major theme in Furst's novels, and trusting any powerful group is presented as a surefire way to prevent yourself from finding truth.