The extraordinary new biography of one remarkable man who led a life ahead of his time. In 1904 Roger Casement became an overnight celebrity when he broadcast the abuses of the Belgian Congo and lobbied for change. Widely admired and even knighted for his humanitarian fervour, still he did not reveal all of himself. The internal fault lines ran deep: he was neither fully Irish nor English; baptised Catholic but raised Protestant; party to colonial rule yet appalled by its cruelties; and desperate for intimacy while tormented by his homosexuality. Plagued by poor mental health, these competing stresses would eventually overwhelm Casement - and he enters Germany during the First World War with a rash scheme to incite the Easter Rising. Later captured and declared a traitor by the British, his reputation in ruins after details of his sex life are leaked, Casement's life ends on the gallows and his body in an unmarked grave until, decades later, he is honoured with an Irish state funeral. Activist, patriot, lover, traitor, martyr: Roger Casement has been many things, to many people. Throughout all these myriad lives, Casement remained someone who struggled with his identity in a world that wilfully condemned difference. Broken Archangel brings the real - passionate, self-deceiving, altruistic, insecure, determined - Roger Casement to life for the first time.

'The wartime spy career of Mathilde Carre - 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 Carre, 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.

'The wartime spy career of Mathilde Carre - aka "the Cat" and "Agent Victoire" - is so extraordinary it almost defies belief' The Times 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 Carre, 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

Donald Maclean was a star diplomat, an establishment insider and a keeper of some of the West's greatest secrets. He was also a Russian spy... 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