The Second World War saw the role of espionage, secret agents and spy services increase exponentially as the world was thrown into a conflict unlike any that had gone before it. At this time, no one in government was really aware of what MI5 and its brethren did. But with Churchill at the country's helm, it was decided to let him in on the secret, providing him with a weekly report of the spy activities. These reports were so classified that he was handed each report personally and copies were never allowed to be made, nor was he allowed to keep hold of them. Even now, the documents only exist as physical copies deep in the archives, many pages annotated by hand by 'W.S.C.' himself. In Churchill's Spy Files intelligence expert Nigel West unravels the tales of hitherto unknown spy missions, using this groundbreaking research to paint a fresh picture of the worldwide intelligence scene of the Second World War.

A riveting story of World War II and the courage of one young woman as she is drafted into Churchill’s overseas spy network, aiding the French Resistance behind enemy lines and working to liberate Nazi-occupied Paris… London, 1941: In a cramped bunker in Winston Churchill’s Cabinet War Rooms, underneath Westminster’s Treasury building, civilian women huddle at desks, typing up confidential documents and reports. Since her parents were killed in a bombing raid, Rose Teasdale has spent more hours than usual in Room 60, working double shifts, growing accustomed to the burnt scent of the Prime Minister’s cigars permeating the stale air. Winning the war is the only thing that matters, and she will gladly do her part. And when Rose’s fluency in French comes to the attention of Churchill himself, it brings a rare yet dangerous opportunity. Rose is recruited for the Special Operations Executive, a secret British organization that conducts espionage in Nazi-occupied Europe. After weeks of grueling training, Rose parachutes into France with a new codename: Dragonfly. Posing as a cosmetics saleswoman in Paris, she ferries messages to and from the Resistance, knowing that the slightest misstep means capture or death. Soon Rose is assigned to a new mission with Lazare Aron, a French Resistance fighter who has watched his beloved Paris become a shell of itself, with desolate streets and buildings draped in Swastikas. Since his parents were sent to a German work camp, Lazare has dedicated himself to the cause with the same fervor as Rose. Yet Rose’s very loyalty brings risks as she undertakes a high-stakes prison raid, and discovers how much she may have to sacrifice to justify Churchill’s faith in her . . . "A rousing historical novel." - The Akron Beacon Journal, Best Books of the Year for Churchill's Secret Messenger

The mysterious life and career of Desmond Morton, Intelligence officer and personal adviser to Winston Churchill during the Second World War, is exposed for the first time in this study based on full access to official records. After distinguished service as artillery officer and aide-de-camp to General Haig during the First World War, Morton worked for the Secret Intelligence Service from 1919-1934, and the fortunes of SIS in the interwar years are described here in unprecedented detail. As Director of the Industrial Intelligence Centre in the 1930s, Morton’s warnings of Germany’s military and industrial preparations for war were widely read in Whitehall, though they failed to accelerate British rearmament as much as Morton - and Churchill - considered imperative. Morton had met Churchill on the Western Front in 1916 and supported him throughout the ‘wilderness years’, moving to Downing Street as the Prime Minister’s Intelligence adviser in May 1940. There he remained in a liaison role, with the Intelligence Agencies and with Allied resistance authorities, until the end of the war, when he became a ‘troubleshooter’ for the Treasury in a series of tricky international assignments. Throughout Morton’s career, myth, rumour and deliberate obfuscation have created a misleading picture of his role and influence. This book shines a light into many hitherto shadowy corners of British history in the first half of the twentieth century. This book will be of great interest to scholars and informed lay readers with an interest in the Second World War, intelligence studies and the life of Winston Churchill.

Reveals evidence of a Watergate style conspiracy by British appeasers against Churchill masterminded by ex-MI5 officer and Conservative Party fixer Sir Joseph Ball, funded by murdered Bahamas Tax Exile Gold Magnate Sir Harry Oakes and British Pro-Nazis. Ball's friends included Cambridge Spy Guy Burgess and James Bond Author Ian Fleming. Events culminate in the mysterious stopping of Big Ben & the arrival of Rudolf Hess in Scotland. 11 years of research reveal how close Churchill came to losing his seat in parliament ,selling his beloved Chartwell, the dirty tricks used against him and how close England came to joining the Axis.

Compared to many of MI5's other double agents, HARLEQUIN’s career was very short-lived, lasting only for a few months in 1943. However, during that time he provided insights into the various parties involved in the Appeasement process in 1938; the Czech crisis of 1939; the enterprises of a Franco-American businessman who hosted the Duke and Duchess of Windsor’s marriage in France; the espionage activities of an aristocratic German family; Admiral Canaris, the head of the Abwehr – many of the Abwehr’s personalities with whom he had come into contact or had known about and the agents he employed – as well as relations between the disparate organisations of the German intelligence services – the Abwehr, Gestapo, and Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the intelligence arm of the SS. Furthermore, he revealed the German Armistice Commission’s involvement in espionage and their links to the Abwehr. MI5 shared this intelligence with the FBI and the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) before HARLEQUIN requested that he be returned to American custody where he remained for the rest of the war. His effectiveness as a double agent will be examined using newly-released official files as a primary source.

Odette Brailly entered the nation's consciousness in the 1950s when her remarkable - and romantic - exploits as an SOE agent first came to light. She had been the first woman to be awarded the GC, as well as the Legion d'Honneur, and in 1950 the release of a film about her life made her the darling of the British popular press. But others openly questioned Odette's personal and professional integrity, even claiming that she had a clandestine affair with her supervisor Capt. Peter Churchill, with whom she had worked undercover in France. Soon she became as controversial as she was celebrated. In the first full biography of this incredible woman for nearly sixty years, historian Penny Starn delves into recently opened SOE personnel files to reveal the true story of this wartime heroine and the officer who posed as her husband. From her life as a French housewife living in Britain and her work undercover with the French Resistance, to her arrest, torture and unlikely survival in Ravensbruck concentration camp, Starns reveals for the first time the truth of Odette's mission and the heart-breaking identity of her real betrayer.

It was inevitable that the Allies would invade France in the summer of 1944: the Nazis just had to figure out where and when. This job fell to the Abwehr and several other German intelligence services. Between them they put over 30,000 personnel to work studying British and American signals traffic, and achieved considerable success in intercepting and decrypting enemy messages. They also sent agents to England – but they weren't to know that none of them would be successful. Until now, the Nazi intelligence community has been disparaged by historians as incompetent and corrupt, but newly released declassified documents suggest this wasn't the case – and that they had a highly sophisticated system that concentrated on the threat of an Allied invasion. Written by acclaimed espionage historian Nigel West, Codeword Overlord is a vital reassessment of Axis behaviour in one of the most dramatic episodes of the twentieth century.