A Wartime Story of Resistance, Collaboration and Betrayal

Victoire

A True Story of Espionage and Resistance in WW2

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

Enough plot twists and moral ambiguity to satisfy any spy novelist ... At its heart this is a book about the moral dilemmas involved in living under the perverting conditions of war and occupation ... Philipps does a fine job of setting the scene inside France, and building up the tension in this increasingly gripping wartime story, and all that follows ... a deeply humane book

What a read! What a fascinating character! I was gripped from the first page to the last. A truly astonishing story, meticulously and brilliantly told

A wonderful, atmospheric book: a miraculous portrait of a flawed human being, and a masterful account of the moral quagmire of wartime France and Britain

Roland Philipps tells Victoire's story with skill and compassion, and reveals that for all her betrayals, she deserves more understanding than she received in her lifetime

Artemis Cooper, author of Patrick Leigh Fermor

'The wartime spy career of Mathilde Carré - 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 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

The Enigma of Donald Maclean

A Spy Named Orphan

A gripping tale of betrayal and counter-betrayal that tells the story of the most enigmatic member of the Cambridge spy ring – Donald Maclean.

Brilliantly fluent...fascinating...[Philipps] writes so cleanly, and at such a clip, handling the big scenes with aplomb...This biography first grips and then lingers long in the mind. It is a page-turner of the most empathetic kind.

Superb…full of contemporary relevance… Philipps relates the complex narrative of Maclean’s treason…with tremendous aplomb, limpidity and acuity

With A Spy Named Orphan, the last piece of this bizarre jigsaw falls into place. The outline story is familiar, but the amount of new detail here — on Maclean's personal, professional, and secret lives – exceeds all expectations. Roland Philipps has managed to make the new material come alive by relating it intimately to its historical context, of which he has a deep and sympathetic understanding.

The definitive account of the life of a “gifted” traitor… Impressive… By drawing on a wealth of previously classified material, Philipps weaves a gripping tale of misplaced loyalty, intrigue and betrayal that is unlikely to be bettered

Fascinating and page-turning. An exceptional story of espionage and betrayal, thrillingly told. I devoured it.

Philippe Sands, winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize for EAST WEST STREET

A lively and beautifully engineered biography

Philipps… is punchy and hard-nosed in his handling of facts, but pliant, imaginative and humane in his understanding of motives and emotions

Fresh and thought-provoking throughout... rich in archive material

A cracking story... An impressively researched and smoothly polished debut... persuasive.. [an] excellent book

A masterpiece. The rich renderings of secret assignations, smuggled documents, damning intelligence and brilliant code-breaking will delight lovers of fiction and non-fiction alike. Picture Erik Larson meets John le Carré and you have only begun to scratch the surface of this absolutely gripping book.

Brad Thor, author of international bestseller SPYMASTER

An adroit, deeply researched and richly embroidered portrait of Maclean

Hugely impressive – by an historian who is a master of storytelling and empathy. A rare combination.

What great storytelling. Maclean may have been a traitor but his slow slide to self-destruction has all the elements of tragedy. I couldn’t put it down.

Donald Maclean was arguably the most valuable, and certainly the most troubled, of the Cambridge spies. Roland Philipps knows the world that formed him and has given us the fullest account we've yet had not only of his treason but of the conflicted man who committed it.

Magisterial. The biography of Maclean we have all been waiting for

Charles Cumming, author of the Thomas Kell series

Admirable… [a] compassionate, absorbing book

Roland Philipps illuminates, in both broad and subtle strokes

Philipps does an admirable job of piecing together the spy’s tale

Philipps’s telling of the tale is masterly. He weaves a complex web of professional, psychological and marital themes into a wonderful fluent, coherent and compelling narrative

Elegant, thorough and surprisingly exciting

In A Spy Named Orphan Roland Philipps’s description of Donald Maclean’s psychological make-up chimes with what I have always felt about the Cambridge spies (Philby excepted) – namely, that their romance with the Soviet Union partook of patriotism as much as it did of espionage… Philipps makes the story and the slow uncovering of his treachery a gripping narrative and an overwhelmingly sad one

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

Roland Philipps

Casement is the Odysseus of Roland Philipp's epic, Broken Archangel, and Philipps is a worthy chronicler. It is a book of meticulous sensitivity and research ... It is a model, in other words, for how to write a biography of a gay person who lived before widespread acceptance

Philipps is sympathetic to his subject and a careful chronicler of diplomatic and intelligence intrigues … he makes a persuasive case that Casement was a fractured personality who embraced causes to fill an emotional void

[An] extraordinary biography … Philipps [is] an accomplished biographer with a knack for getting under the skin of his subjects … There’s a wonderful immediacy to this portrait, as if Casement sits in the room with us, discussing his life, revealing his secrets

Remarkable ... Broken Archangel is an exceptionally well researched and psychologically shrewd portrait of his deeply lonely idealist

The chief virtues of Broken Archangel are its compact size and energetic narrative. For the stranger to Casement’s life, this is the book to buy

[An] authoritative and impressively clear-sighted biography ... A vivid and striking portrait of this deeply conflicted man

Irishman Roger Casement was gay, rejected the Empire, and allied with Germany, and, as Roland Philipps's superb study shows, paid dearly: he was hanged for treason in 1916

Meticulous and sympathetic ... [a] fine book

[A] well-researched and engagingly narrated biography … For those looking for an accurate, fluidly written account of Casement in his own era, this biography is easy to recommend … [his] treason trial are ably transformed into a page-turning finale

Roland Philipps' calm, authoritative and sympathetic new account surely comes close to being definitive

This minutely researched, superbly written and genuinely exciting biography explores and ultimately convincingly explains the historical conundrum that was Sir Roger Casement. I can’t remember turning the pages of a non-fiction book so eagerly to find out what happened next, secure in the knowledge that with Roland Philipps I was in the hands of a master-storyteller

One of the many outstanding things about this book is that Philipps has managed to yoke together the extraordinarily disparate sides of Roger Casement’s character into a comprehensible whole. In doing so, he has rescued him from the ignominy to which he has been unjustly consigned.

John Preston, author of A Very English Scandal

Patriot, human rights campaigner, knight of the realm, traitor. Roger Casement was a complex, 
appealing, deeply flawed man. In Roland Philipps, he has found the biographer he deserves. This meticulous, sympathetic, elegantly written account gives one of the 20th century's most controversial and tragic players the attention he deserves

Michela Wrong, author of In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz

A superb portrait of an enigma. Roland Philipps has produced a masterful biography, full of compassion and verve. In bringing Casement to life, he has resurrected a figure who deserves to be known as the first modern human rights campaigner, one who saved countless lives and gave voice to those who could not be heard, before being undone by some of his deepest and innermost divisions. This is a vivid, poignant and hugely moving account of an extraordinary life

Henry Hemming, author of Agents of Influence

Roland Philipps’s comprehensive, perceptive and sympathetic biography does full justice to Casement’s odyssey from dysfunctional Ulster boyhood, through imperial service campaigning for exploited native workers, to his eventual execution as a nationalist revolutionary. It is a rich and compulsively readable treatment of the most extraordinary of Irish lives

Roy Foster, Emeritus Professor of Irish History, University of Oxford

Tells the story [of Casement] at a cracking pace

[Casement's] life contained multitudes ... All of this is handled with great care in Roland Philipps' accessible new biography ... There is much to admire about the writing in this biography ... Philipps does a fine job

An excellent introduction to a vexed era in British and Irish history

Philipps is constantly seeking to probe below the surface for answers ... A valuable contribution to a wider understanding and appreciation of Sir Roger Casement ... A long overdue appreciation of a true Irish hero

The Tempestuous Lives of Roger Casement

Celebrated reformer and proud Irish nationalist, romantic radical and vilified traitor, Roger Casement was a man of many, often contradictory, parts. 
 
It was a life caught between fault lines. Casement exposed the horrors of the Belgian Congo on behalf of the British establishment, championing the colonially oppressed and pioneering modern human rights. He fought passionately for Irish independence, even as each step led towards martyrdom. And, desperate for love but forced to hide his sexuality, his deepest relationship became treacherously entangled in espionage and sabotage, isolating him and carrying him to an unmarked prison grave. 
 
Masterfully drawing on his letters, diaries and new archival material, Broken Archangel uncovers the extraordinary life and legacy of Roger Casement – one of the 20th century’s most complex and compelling individuals.

Roland Philipps

Praise for Broken Archangel

Casement is the Odysseus of Roland Philipp's epic, Broken Archangel, and Philipps is a worthy chronicler. It is a book of meticulous sensitivity and research ... It is a model, in other words, for h ...

Philipps is sympathetic to his subject and a careful chronicler of diplomatic and intelligence intrigues … he makes a persuasive case that Casement was a fractured personality who embraced causes to fill an e ...

[An] extraordinary biography … Philipps [is] an accomplished biographer with a knack for getting under the skin of his subjects … There’s a wonderful immediacy to this portrait, as if Casement sits in ...

Casement is the Odysseus of Roland Philipp's epic, Broken Archangel, and Philipps is a worthy chronicler. It is a book of meticulous sensitivity and research ... It is a model, in other words, for h ...

Philipps is sympathetic to his subject and a careful chronicler of diplomatic and intelligence intrigues … he makes a persuasive case that Casement was a fractured personality who embraced causes to fill an e ...

[An] extraordinary biography … Philipps [is] an accomplished biographer with a knack for getting under the skin of his subjects … There’s a wonderful immediacy to this portrait, as if Casement sits in ...

Casement is the Odysseus of Roland Philipp's epic, Broken Archangel, and Philipps is a worthy chronicler. It is a book of meticulous sensitivity and research ... It is a model, in other words, for h ...

Philipps is sympathetic to his subject and a careful chronicler of diplomatic and intelligence intrigues … he makes a persuasive case that Casement was a fractured personality who embraced causes to fill an e ...

[An] extraordinary biography … Philipps [is] an accomplished biographer with a knack for getting under the skin of his subjects … There’s a wonderful immediacy to this portrait, as if Casement sits in ...

Books by Roland Philipps

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