No Cloak

First published in 1960, this memoir recounts Benjamin Cowburn's missions for the Special Operations Executive in occupied and Vichy France. Fluent in French from pre-war work as an engineer in Paris, he parachutes in to recruit helpers, arrange letter-drops, safe houses, and landing grounds, and carry out sabotage, including an attack on locomotive parts. He records arrests, failed circuits, and the ordinary risks of trains and hotels, in a matter-of-fact tone that rejects thriller convention. The book is a first-person agent narrative, not a general history of the Resistance.

Bound in cloth. Blocked with a design by Geoff Grandfield. Silver slipcase.