The most recommended books on Special Operations Executive

Maddie, a pilot, and Verity, an SOE agent, are two girls from very different pre-war lives who forge a deep friendship during World War II.

Verity has been captured and, while being interrogated in France, is forced to write a confession. Into this, she weaves the story of how she and Maddie came to know each other. Maddie’s version of events comes later in the book and provides a different reading of what happened. To say more would involve spoilers, so I won’t go any further.

I was gripped by the plotting – Verity is under a death sentence – and by the vivid writing: two young women pouring their all onto the pages. It’s a harrowing read at times, thrilling, beautiful, and heartbreaking. And it’s the first book that’s made me cry for a very long time.

I love anything about World War II and spies, and this book takes you right into the dangerous world of espionage.

It’s wonderful, too, to have a female spy, Nancy, who works in London for the Special Operations Executive as a de-coder. She proves to be very clever at her work and suggests that coded messages should be written on silk as silk is thin and easily concealed in a cuff or a collar. Eventually, Nancy, who is half Dutch and speaks French, is sent to France to spy on the Germans.

What follows is a breathtaking tale of courage, betrayal, and loss. It’s fast-paced and authentic. Read the historical notes at the end. Deborah Swift has woven her detailed research into a fast-paced, thrilling, and moving story.

Who were the men that SOE recruited? Andrew Croft was already a hero when World War Two began – he was well-known arctic explorer of great courage and endurance. This autobiography tells the intriguing story of his life, leading perhaps inevitably to service with SOE and many other wartime adventures.

This book was published after Tom Donovan, the bookseller, came across the manuscript in a boot fair. It’s a brilliant depiction of Hedley’s experience fighting in Burma in 1942 at the height of Japanese ascendancy, through to the Chindits in 1944, and then finally in Burma behind enemy lines with Special Operations Executive (SOE) in 1945. The book engagingly recounts the extent of Hedley’s experience between 1942 and 1945: few officers were involved in the fighting at every stage of the campaign as was he. His role in helping raise the Karen levies against the Japanese in 1945 is a highlight. 

This is the book that first sparked my enduring fascination with the women who were recruited into the Special Operations Executive in World War ll. Binney draws vivid pictures of the women from many different backgrounds who volunteered for this dangerous work. He made me realise that this was no romantic adventure but an existence where danger lurked round every corner, very often with tragic results. Although entirely factual in content, it reads like a novel. Inspiring and chilling at the same time. 

This one I listened to. I normally read.

A story of one young woman drafted into Churchill’s overseas spy network, aiding the French Resistance behind enemy lines and working to liberate Nazi-occupied Paris. London, 1941: Due to Rose Teasdale’s fluency in French, she is recruited for the Special Operations Executive, a secret British organization that conducts espionage in Nazi-occupied Europe.

Rose parachutes into France with a new codename: Dragonfly. Posing as a cosmetics saleswoman in Paris, she ferries messages to and from the Resistance. (Of course, typically in fiction,) she falls for a French Resistance fighter who has also dedicated himself to the cause.

The story of four women agents from the SOE’s French section and their journey to a death camp in France is movingly told. They travel from different directions and come from different backgrounds but meet their tragic fate together. The book captures the spirit of resistance and their heroism.

Oxford academic Dr. Roderick Bailey is an expert on the Special Operations Executive who made helpful comments to improve my first WW2 book. I love the little-known stories of Italian and British secret agents that populate this book, which is the official history of SOE’s undercover war against Mussolini's Italy. I enjoy tracing the strategic impact of relatively minor actions. Some efforts succeeded, many failed. There were the attempts to make common cause with the Sicilian Mafia. There was the agent paid and supplied by SOE who was really working for Italian Counter-Intelligence. And there was the SOE agent who parachuted into Lake Como, was immediately captured and expected execution, but survived to provide the secret radio link that enabled Italy to surrender and change sides. 

How did they do it? If you want to know about secret agents, then you need to know about the secret weapons and devices they used. SOE had a whole catalogue of secret weapons—from sleeve guns to incendiary cigarettes, exploding rats, and exploding turds. This book tells much of the story of the secret devices factory that SOE ran.

Knowing about Noor Inayat Khan’s life is crucial to understanding why people become spies; her story is utterly startling.

I learned about Noor (codename Madeleine) while doing research in London for my fifth book. One of the people I interviewed was well-informed about the women who were trained as spies in WWII for Winston Churchill’s Special Operations Executive (SOE).

During that trip, someone left a copy of her biography, Spy Princess (a 2006 British publication), for me at the hotel front desk; to this day, I don’t know who. I read it on the flight back to the U.S. and was immensely moved by Noor’s motivations and her shocking bravery, especially after she faced the Gestapo and was sent to a concentration camp.