The F-Section of the SOE was a department that stood for French Section, whose job it was to carry out Churchill's famous command to 'set Europe alight'. This is the story of F-Section.

**OVER A MILLION COPIES SOLD WORLDWIDE • A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERChosen as a BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR by NPR, the New York Public Library, Amazon, the Seattle Times, the Washington Independent Review of Books, PopSugar, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, BookBrowse, the Spectator, and the Times of LondonWinner of the Plutarch Award for Best Biography“Excellent…This book is as riveting as any thriller...

This WWII espionage biography brings "one of America's greatest spies back to life" in a "story of derring-do and white knuckles suspense" (Patrick O'Donnell, author of Operatives, Spies, and Saboteurs)Virginia Hall left her comfortable Baltimore roots in 1931 with dreams of becoming a Foreign Service Officer, but her gender—and her wooden leg—kept her from pursuing politics. As Hitler advanced across Europe, she put her gift for languages to use with the B...

'They were the war's bravest women, devoted to defeating the Nazis yet reluctant ever to reveal their heroic pasts. Now a new book tells their intrepid tales.' - Daily ExpressBritain's war in the shadows of male spies and subterfuge in the heart of occupied France is a story well known, but what of the women who also risked their lives for Britain and the liberation of France? In 1942 a desperate need for new recruits, saw SOE tur...

Nancy Wake, nicknamed 'the white mouse' for her ability to evade capture, tells her own story. As the Gestapo's most wanted person, and one of the most highly decorated servicewomen of the war, it's a story worth telling.After living and working in Paris in the 1930's, Nancy married a wealthy Frenchman and settled in Marseilles. Her idyllic new life was ended by World War II and the invasion of France. Her life shattered, Nancy joined the French resistance and, later, began work wi...

NATIONAL BESTSELLERFeatured in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Time, New York Newsday, and on Today!“A nonfiction thriller.”—The Wall Street JournalFrom New York Times and international bestselling author of the “gripping” (Michael Connelly, #1 New York Times bestselling author...

The thrilling and inspiring true story of Violette Szabo, the fearless British cloak-and-dagger agent who infiltrated Nazi occupied France.Switchboard operator and volunteer for the Women's Land Army, Violette Szabo was only twenty-two years old when her husband, Etienne, a captain in the French Foreign Legion, died at El Alamein. His death only made the resilient young widow more determined than ever to join England's war effort in World War II. To Violette's surp...

'Based on eye-witness accounts, Robert Pike's moving book vividly depicts the lives of the villagers who were caught up in the tragedy of Oradour-sur-Glane and brings their experiences to our attention for the first time.' - Hanna Diamond, author of Fleeing HitlerOn 10 June 1944, four days after Allied forces landed in Normandy, the picturesque village of Oradour-sur-Glane in the rural heart of France was destroyed by an armoured SS Panzer...

"A thrilling, challenging and educational book . . . examines the roles of spies such a Edith Cavell, Mata Hari, Violette Szabo and Noor Inayat Khan" ( Pennant Magazine).Women spies have rarely received the recognition they deserve. They have often been trivialized and, in cinema and popular fiction, stereotyped as vamps or dupes. The reality is very different. As spies, women have played a critical role during wartime, receiving and passing on vital infor...

'The literary VC goes to without doubt to Max Hastings for his Das Reich . . . the story of a march that left behind a trail of blood and death, torture and heroism' Sunday TelegraphWithin days of the D-Day landings, the Das Reich 2nd SS Panzer Division marched north through France to reinforce the front-line defenders of Hitler's Fortress Europe. Veterans of the bloodiest fighting of the Russian Front, 15,000 men with their tanks and artillery, they were ...

On the night of the 22 September 1943 Pearl Witherington, a twenty-nine-year-old British secretary and agent of the Special Operations Executive (SOE), was parachuted from a Halifax bomber into Occupied France. Like Sebastian Faulks' heroine, Charlotte Gray, Pearl had a dual mission: to fight for her beloved, broken France and to find her lost love. Pearl's lover was a Parisian parfumier turned soldier, Henri Cornioley, who had been taken prisoner while serving in the French Logistics Corp...

This is an untold, beautifully-written spy story set in wartime occupied France with a brilliant but ruthless British secret agent at its heart. A spy story like no other.Game of Spies uncovers a lethal spy triangle at work during the Second World War. The story centres on three men – on British, one French and one German – and the duels they fought out in an atmosphere of collaboration, betrayal and assassination, in which comrades sold fellow comrades, A...