Victoire

Roland, Philipps

£20.00

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’, known as Agent Victoire. She is a charismatic spy; her story is one of resistance and survival. These are the darkest days for France, half occupied by Nazi Germany, half run by the collaborationist Vichy regime; and dark days for Britain – isolated and under threat of invasion. Mathilde and her Polish conspirator, Roman Czerniawski, have risked torture and execution to build the first Allied intelligence network in Occupied France. With no training and little support, they have in a few months developed a huge system of agents. Their coded weekly reports are London’s sole lifeline of reliable information. Mathilde is determined to be her nation’s saviour, and what the partners build is central to Intelligence and Resistance efforts.

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Publish Date: 15/04/2021

Description

‘The wartime spy career of Mathilde Carré – aka “the Cat” and “Agent Victoire” – is so extraordinary it almost defies belief’ The Times

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

RESISTANCE, COLLABORATION AND BETRAYAL

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. She is charismatic, daring, and a spy; her story is one of heroism and survival against the odds.

These are the darkest days for France, half-occupied by Nazi Germany, half-governed by the collaborationist Vichy regime; and dark days for Britain, isolated and under threat of invasion. Yet Mathilde is driven by a sense of destiny that she will be her nation’s saviour.

With little training or support, Mathilde and her Polish collaborator, Roman Czerniawski, create a huge web of agents in a matter of weeks to form the first great Allied intelligence network of the Second World War. They risk torture and execution to deliver their coded reports, London’s sole source of reliable information about the Occupation.

But the ‘Big Network’ is threatened at every turn and when the Germans inevitably close in Mathilde makes a desperate compromise. She enters a hall of mirrors in which any bond is doubtful and every action could be fatal. Nobody is certain where her allegiances lie – her German handler, the founder of the Resistance she ensnares and the British who eventually succeed in extracting her on a fast boat all have to make their own calculations. Is she a double, possibly even a triple agent, and, if so, can she be trusted to turn yet again?

Victoire is the story of a passionate, courageous spy but also of a fragile hero, desperate to belong – a portrait of patriotism and survival in momentous times. Drawing on a wide range of new and first-hand material, Roland Philipps has written a dazzling tale of audacity, complicity and the choices made in wartime.

Additional information

Weight 778 g
Dimensions 250 × 170 × 40 mm
Author

Publisher

Imprint

Cover

Hardback

Pages

352 , 16 unnumbered of plates

Language

English

Edition
Dewey

940.548644092 (edition:23)

Readership

General – Trade / Code: K