Here are 100 books that A Talent for Adventure fans have personally recommended if you like
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I started writing military history out of anger—a national newspaper had published an obituary of one of our SAS heroes, and it had wrongly defamed a deceased Italian partisan as a traitor. The newspaper published my letter of correction, but only on its website. It mattered to me that the record should be put straight, and therefore I wrote my first book. In researching that book, I discovered links that led me to Operation Postmaster, and after that, I caught the researcher's bug. As an experienced criminal lawyer, evaluating evidence has always been one of my skills, and sometimes "building" a book is very similar to building a case for the defence or prosecution.
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.
The history of Special Operations Executive (SOE) seems to spring a never-ending run of surprises, and here are some more. This book explores the mysterious world of the tools SOE used for their missions of subversion and sabotage. An often grim reality is confronted that is more akin with the world of James Bond and Q's workshop than previously believed. Written by two scientists, one of whom served in the SOE and one who was tasked with clearing up after it was disbanded; their insider knowledge presents a clear account of the way in which SOE's inventors worked. From high…
I started writing military history out of anger—a national newspaper had published an obituary of one of our SAS heroes, and it had wrongly defamed a deceased Italian partisan as a traitor. The newspaper published my letter of correction, but only on its website. It mattered to me that the record should be put straight, and therefore I wrote my first book. In researching that book, I discovered links that led me to Operation Postmaster, and after that, I caught the researcher's bug. As an experienced criminal lawyer, evaluating evidence has always been one of my skills, and sometimes "building" a book is very similar to building a case for the defence or prosecution.
Difficult to find, but this is a great little book. Geoffrey Appleyard was one of those secret agents involved in Operation Postmaster – one of the original James Bonds. He later joined the Special Air Service, and served with them with distinction, reaching the rank of Major. Tragically, he disappeared on a plane flying over Sicily during the Allied invasion of July 1943. His body was never recovered. This biography was written by his father as a memorial to Geoffrey, and has recently been republished. It is a heroic tale with a very sad ending.
I started writing military history out of anger—a national newspaper had published an obituary of one of our SAS heroes, and it had wrongly defamed a deceased Italian partisan as a traitor. The newspaper published my letter of correction, but only on its website. It mattered to me that the record should be put straight, and therefore I wrote my first book. In researching that book, I discovered links that led me to Operation Postmaster, and after that, I caught the researcher's bug. As an experienced criminal lawyer, evaluating evidence has always been one of my skills, and sometimes "building" a book is very similar to building a case for the defence or prosecution.
An SOE agent with a difference - of particular relevance, perhaps, to the present war in Ukraine. Major Gordon Lett escaped from a prisoner-of-war camp in Italy in 1943 and became a partisan leader behind enemy lines there. He was recruited by SOE in 1944 when already leading a resistance band in the mountains above La Spezia. This book tells of the difficulties of fighting a partisan war, something that we understand is going on today behind Russian lines in Ukraine. It tells the story of civilian courage and sacrifice, and of guerrilla warfare in the face of a brutal enemy.
In July 1942, Major Gordon Lett was taken prisoner at the fall of Tobruk. After fourteen months in the notorious prison camps at Bari and Chieti, he escaped at the Armistice of September 1943 from the camp at Veano and took to the mountains above the Cisa Pass. Rather than return to England, he founded and led an entirely non-political band of highly-successful partisans, the Battaglione Internazionale. The group fought and harassed the Brigate Nere and the Germans along the Magra valley from North of Pontremoli to La Spezia for 18 months. They were so influential to the success of…
I started writing military history out of anger—a national newspaper had published an obituary of one of our SAS heroes, and it had wrongly defamed a deceased Italian partisan as a traitor. The newspaper published my letter of correction, but only on its website. It mattered to me that the record should be put straight, and therefore I wrote my first book. In researching that book, I discovered links that led me to Operation Postmaster, and after that, I caught the researcher's bug. As an experienced criminal lawyer, evaluating evidence has always been one of my skills, and sometimes "building" a book is very similar to building a case for the defence or prosecution.
First published in 1952, this remains an epic tale of an SOE secret agent in France – Squadron Leader Forest Frederick Edward Yeo-Thomas. Yeo-Thomas had worked in France before the war and spoke fluent French. When World War Two broke out, he joined the RAF and was later recruited by SOE. He parachuted a number of times into France to help establish the resistance there and was eventually captured, imprisoned, and brutally tortured. Miraculously, he escaped from Buchenwald Concentration Camp and found his way back into Allied hands. He survived the war.
I was born just before the start of World War ll. My father served throughout the war in the RAF but before that he had been a professional singer. I was interested in the idea that the war had sent people along paths that they would never have otherwise explored and I decided to write about four young performing artists and their wartime experiences. The result was the four novels in my Follies series. It meant a lot of research, in the process of which I discovered the work of the Special Operations Executive. This has provided me with material for several more novels, of which Operation Lightning Bolt is the most recent.
This book plays into my own interest in the work of the Special Operations Executive during World War ll. But it is set some years after the war and deals with the legacy of secrecy and its effect on the men and women who served in SOE. It is a story of revenge and reconciliation, and the plot has many dramatic twists building up to a nail-biting climax and a bitter revelation.
My dear Elsa— You are grieving and I am sorry, but there are things you need to know… Because this is not only a confession. It is an accusation. So, in case you get no further, here is the bald fact.
I killed your grandfather.
War hides many secrets and some of them are better kept. But the secret of Hut Ten was never that kind: it could have been leaked and a life would have been saved. One man could have made that difference. He didn’t - and vengeance has taken forty years to catch up with him.
I am a writer of Indian origin and have always been passionate about telling the story of the involvement of Indians in both World Wars. Very few people know that 2.5 million Indian volunteered for the Second World War, the largest volunteer force in history. I have always enjoyed reading stories of intelligence operations in wartime, the role of the Resistance in occupied countries and particularly the role of women in the Second World War. I was drawn to the story of Noor Inayat Khan from all these perspectives.
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.
This is the true story of four women, members of the Special Operations Executive (SOE), who were sent into Nazi-occupied France during World War II, and then caught up in a web of deception which resulted in their deaths at the hands of the Gestapo. In this book, Rita Kramer pieces together the women's stories, how they came to be involved in such a dangerous operation as well as their experiences in France, and also analyzes the controversial methods of SOE at a crucial period in the war.
I have always been interested in the environment, ever since I studied Human Ecology under Professor Roger Revelle at Harvard. Several summer jobs in the Arctic with the Geological Survey of Canada gave me an early appreciation of what climate change meant for the polar region, and a more recent visit to Greenland brought the environmental devastation there more into focus. Also, having escaped from Communist Hungary in 1956, I have keenly followed Russia and its superpower ambitions, so it was natural for me to combine these two areas of interest into an environmental thriller. I am now writing a sequel, Arctic Inferno.
As with the previous book, this one too shows the author’s deep knowledge of the subject and his ability to weave that into a gripping thriller. Here too, you get both learning and titillation. In this book, Brooks Yeager, a former advisor to the Arctic Council and environmental negotiator, combines the high-stakes dynamics of international Arctic politics and many of the critical environmental issues facing us there and elsewhere, with other key ingredients such as well-constructed characters, lots of romance and an engaging plot to create a book you cannot put down.
2021 American Fiction Award Winner in Adventure: General
Taz Blackwell, former environmental negotiator and now a trouble-seeking drinker and romantic charmer, tries to find a new life and love against a backdrop of espionage, corporate plunderers, and devious diplomats.
Escaping a failed marriage, Taz moves to the island of Chincoteague on Virginia's Atlantic Coast, where he explores friendships with a cast of small-town misfits and romance with a beautiful but wary divorcee. Meanwhile, he fights a corporate land grab on the shore and a shady billion-dollar mining play in the international Arctic.
Why is a Chinese mining conglomerate stealing the…
I was born just before the start of World War ll. My father served throughout the war in the RAF but before that he had been a professional singer. I was interested in the idea that the war had sent people along paths that they would never have otherwise explored and I decided to write about four young performing artists and their wartime experiences. The result was the four novels in my Follies series. It meant a lot of research, in the process of which I discovered the work of the Special Operations Executive. This has provided me with material for several more novels, of which Operation Lightning Bolt is the most recent.
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.
"They flirted with men, and with death." In The Women Who Lived for Danger, acclaimed historian Marcus Binney recounts the story of ten remarkable women -- some famous, some virtually unknown -- recruited to work behind enemy lines as secret agents during WWII. Part of Winston Churchill's Special Operations Executive, formed in 1940 to "set Europe ablaze," the women of the SOE were trained to handle guns and explosives, work undercover, endure interrogation by the Gestapo, and use complex codes. Once in enemy territory, theirs was the most dangerous war of all, leading an apparently normal civilian life but in…
My name is Joy Gerken pen name Joy M., Lilley. I live in Kent, England with husband Michael and our three rescue cats. We have four children, six grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren. I began writing in 2013 after retiring from a long nursing career. My list is multi-genre, I like to both read and write books from all genres. It broadens my horizons and helps me focus more clearly on my own writing. I recommend all five books to you as I have enjoyed the reading of them all.
This is a glorious read that supplies verve, love, and heart. Two siblings are still living with their mother in their fifties in poverty and isolation. There is a serious risk of the inability to cope following their mother's demise. Music is a theme running throughout this charming story of resilience, and the survival instinct.
The two find they are living on the fringes of society, however, the ending proves that light can be spun from darkness.
Named a Best Book of the Month by Entertainment Weekly, PopSugar, Bustle, Chicago Review of Books, PureWow, a Best Book of Summer by Daily Beast and one of Good Housekeeping's Best Books of 2021
"Full of dramatic twists and turns right up until its moving, beautiful end." —NPR Books
At fifty-one years old, twins Jeanie and Julius still live with their mother, Dot, in rural isolation in the English countryside. The cottage they have shared their entire lives is their only protection against the modernizing world…
Hodder and IVP had already published two of my earlier books—during my three decades as a Royal Air Force pilot and another one leading a conflict resolution NGO—when my journey as a WW2 author began. It all started with my wife's book about her German mother and British Intelligence Corps father (The Bride's Trunk). That got me interested in the links between 'the Corps' and the Special Operations Executive. Three SOE books later, I’m following the organisation into Austria. I've barely scratched the surface of undercover operations and I’m always finding new niches to discover.
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.
Drawing on long-classified documents, Target: Italy is the official history of the war waged by Britain's Special Operations Executive on Benito Mussolini's Fascist Italy. It is the first full account of SOE's clandestine efforts to strike at Italy and sever its alliance with Nazi Germany, uncovering missions as remarkable as a plot to assassinate Mussolini and plans to arm the Mafia. It is also the first in-depth history of SOE's attempts at causing trouble inside an enemy country as opposed to an enemy-occupied one, issuing a sobering reminder of the terrible dangers that foreign agencies can encounter when trying to…
