‘A book of met-iculous sensitivity and research’ TELEGRAPH
‘Extraordinary’ THE TIMES
‘Superbly written, genuinely exciting’ ANDREW ROBERTS
‘Outstanding’ JOHN PRESTON

In 1904, Casement became internationally celebrated for unearthing the grotesque violence of the Belgian Congo. Soon after he won even greater renown and a knighthood for his humanitarian work deep in the Amazon jungle.

But his internal fault lines ran deep: neither fully Irish nor English, baptised both Protestant and Catholic, desperate for love but forbidden intimacy, betrayed in his only significant relationship, he was of the English diplomatic establishment yet an outsider who fought for Irish nationhood. His final act in wartime Berlin – a doomed scheme to promote an invasion of Ireland – overwhelmed him. And while his subsequent trial for treason brought him some resolution, it also took him to an unmarked prison grave.

Casement was a contradictory figure made fallible by contemporary mores and his own unexamined emotions. Only decades later did an Irish state funeral finally assert his nobility above his notoriety – and only now can we fully understand his surprisingly modern and deeply relevant life and legacy.

‘In Roland Philipps [Casement] has found the biographer he deserves’ MICHELA WRONG, author of Do Not Disturb
‘Vivid, poignant and hugely moving’ HENRY HEMMING, author of Our Man in New York

**SHORTLISTED FOR HISTORY RECLAIMED’S HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024**

An exhilarating true story of espionage, resistance, and one of WW2’s most charismatic double-agents.

Occupied Paris, 1940. A woman in a red hat and a black fur coat hurries down a side-street. She is Mathilde Carré, codenamed ‘the Cat’, later known as Agent Victoire – charismatic, daring and a spy.

These are the darkest days for France, yet Mathilde is driven by a sense of destiny that she will be her nation’s saviour. Soon, she is at the centre of the first great Allied intelligence network of the Second World War.

But as Roland Philipps shows in this extraordinary account of her life, when the Germans close in, Mathilde makes a desperate and dangerous compromise. Nobody – not her German handler, nor the Resistance and the British – can be certain where her allegiances now lie…

‘A truly astonishing story, meticulously and brilliantly told’ Philippe Sands, author of The Ratline

‘Gripping… Enough plot twists and moral ambiguity to satisfy any spy novelist’ Spectator

Codenamed ‘Orphan’ by his Russian recruiter, Maclean was Britain’s most gifted traitor. But as he leaked huge amounts of top-secret intelligence, an international code-breaking operation was rapidly closing in on him. Moments before he was unmasked, Maclean escaped to Moscow.

Drawing on a wealth of previously classified material, A Spy Named Orphan now tells this story for the first time in full, revealing the character and devastating impact of perhaps the most dangerous Soviet agent of the twentieth century.

‘Superb’
William Boyd

‘Fascinating? An exceptional story of espionage and betrayal, thrillingly told‘
Philippe Sands

‘A cracking story? Impressively researched‘
Sunday Times

‘Philipps makes the story and the slow uncovering of [Maclean’s] treachery a gripping narrative’
Alan Bennett