This is not a history of the First World War. It is the story of the women of the resistance in Belgium and Occupied northern France during that conflict. Stroud uses six main characters as a lens to describe the work of an extraordinarily brave group of women. In 1914, before the Germans invaded, they were ordinary people – some were poor, some were rich, some were low born and others from the top echelons of society – they were drawn together by war and they show what the individual can do when faced with apparently overwhelming odds. Their work was not glamorous, but it was essential and has often been overlooked; it was also dangerous and the penalties severe: death or life imprisonment. Three of the women he writes about faced the firing squad, including Louise Derache (the first woman to die in front of a firing squad in WWI), British nurse Edith Cavell, and Gabrielle Petit, the Beligian national hero whose response to her imminent execution gives this book its title: I am not afraid of staring into the Rifles. This is a devastating story, beautifully told; it will introduce you to an entirely new version of the war.  

'A fascinating, superbly researched and revelatory book - told with tremendous pace and excitement' William Boyd 'Rick Stroud writes brilliantly about war ... an astonishing book ... a wonderful story' Ben Macintyre 'Enthralling, edge-of-smart exciting and also heart-breaking...Stroud's book is a reminder and fitting testimony to their immense bravery' James Holland On 18 June 1940 General de Gaulle broadcast from London to his countrymen in France about the catastrophe that had overtaken their nation - the victory of the invading Germans. He declared: 'The flame of French Resistance must not and will not be extinguished.' The Resistance began almost immediately. At first it was made up of small, disorganised groups working in isolation. But by the time of the liberation in 1944 around 400,000 French citizens, nearly 2 per cent of the population, were involved. The Special Operations Executive (SOE) set up by Winston Churchill in 1941 saw its role in France as helping the Resistance by recruiting and organising guerrilla fighters; supplying and training them; and then disrupting the invaders by any means necessary. The aim of this work was to prepare for the invasion of Europe by Allied forces and the eventual liberation of France. It was soon decided that women would play a vital role. There were 39 female agents recruited from all walks of life, ranging from a London shop assistant to a Polish aristocrat. They all knew France well, were fluent in French and were prepared to sacrifice everything. The women trained alongside the men, learning how to disappear into the background, how to operate a radio transmitter and how to kill a man with their bare hands. Once trained, they were infiltrated behind the lines; some went on to lead thousands of Resistance fighters, while others were arrested, brutally interrogated and sent to concentration camps. Lonely Courage tells their remarkable story and sheds new light on what life was really like for these brave women.

All thirteen episodes of the drama series starring Derek Jacobi as the medieval sleuth. In the opening episode 'One Corpse Too Many', Cadfael, once a man of the world, has become a man of the cloth. However, this by no means qualifies him as a saint. He discovers a murder, and sets out in pursuit of the perpertrator, assisted by a lovely young fugitive. 'The Sanctuary Sparrow' sees Brother Cadfael investigating the murder of the local goldsmith. In 'The Leper of St Giles' a great wedding is to take place in the Abbey of Shrewsbury between Baron Huon (Norman Eshley) and Iveta De Massard (Tara Fitzgerald). Iveta is a beautiful, kind soul and on the day she and her betrothed ride into the town she throws money to the lepers, but her brutish Baron beats them. On the eve of the wedding he rides off into the night never to return. Cadfael sets out to find out what is going on. In 'Monk's Hood', a landowner cuts his son-in-law out of his will, leaving his inheritance to the church. However, before the transaction is finished, Gervase Gurney (Bernard Gallagher) is poisoned whilst staying at the Abbey of Shrewsbury. Cadfael finds someone from his past as he looks into the poisoning. In 'The Virgin in the Ice' Cadfael has to prove the innocence of his novice, Oswin (Mark Charnock), who is accused of murdering a nun after he is found wandering deliriously. In 'The Devil's Novice', Cadfael is suspicious when a young man, Meriet (Christien Anholt), arrives at Shrewsbury Abbey wishing to become a Novice. Canon Eluard (Ian McNeice) shares Cadfael's doubts as to Meriet's intentions, and when the half-burned body of a colleague is discovered, Meriet is accused of murder. In 'A Morbid Taste For Bones', Cadfael reluctantly accompanies an expedition to dig up the grave of St Winifred, after one of the Shrewsbury monks has a vision. He soon finds himself investigating a murder, when Lord Rhysart (John Hallam) is found dead on a forest track with an arrow in his chest. Robert (Michael Culver) believes the culprit to be Godwin, who was having an affair with Rhysart's daughter, Sioned (Anna Friel). However, Cadfael has other ideas. In 'The Rose Rent', the recently-widowed of a rich merchant becomes an attraction for the men of Shrewsbury, until one of her suitors and a monk are murdered. In 'St Peter's Fair', conflict arises between the townspeople of Shrewsbury and visitors to the annual fair. In 'The Raven in the Foregate', Cadfael has a double murder to solve when a pregnant girl and a priest who refused to hear her confession are both killed. In 'The Holy Thief', Cadfael is on the hunt for a beautiful slave girl and the bones of St Winifred, both of which have mysteriously disappeared from the Abbey. In 'The Potter's Field', Cadfael uncovers a terrible web of jealousy, adultery and suicide pacts when he examines the past of a potter who has entered the monastery under suspicious circumstances. Finally, in 'The Pilgrim of Hate', an old man's corpse is found in a sack in the Abbey, and Cadfael must find his killer.

'Victor Gregg is the most remarkable spokesman for the war generation' Dan Snow In Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut fictionalised his time as a prisoner of war in Dresden in 1945. Vonnegut was imprisoned in a cellar while the firestorm raged through the city, wiping out generations of innocent lives. Victor Gregg remained above ground throughout the firebombing. This is his true eyewitness account of that week in February 1945. Already a seasoned soldier with the Rifle Brigade, Gregg joined the 10th Parachute Regiment in 1944. He was captured at Arnhem where he volunteered to be sent to a work camp rather than become another faceless number in the huge POW camps. With two failed escape attempts under his belt, Gregg was eventually caught sabotaging a factory and sent to Dresden for execution. Before Gregg could be executed, the British Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Forces dropped more than 3,900 tons of high-explosive bombs and incendiary devices on Dresden in four air raids over two days in February 1945. The resulting firestorm destroyed six square miles of the city centre. 25,000 people, mostly civilians, were estimated to have been killed. Post-war discussion of whether or not the attacks were justified has led to the bombing becoming one of the moral questions of the Second World War. In Gregg's first-hand narrative, personal and punchy, he describes the trauma and carnage of the Dresden bombing. After the raid, he spent five days helping to recover a city of innocent civilians, thousands of whom had died in the fire storm, trapped underground in human ovens. As order was restored, his life was once more in danger and he escaped to the east, spending the last weeks of the war with the Russians.