Reginald Jones was nothing less than a genius. And his appointment to the Intelligence Section of Britain's Air Ministry in 1939 led to some of the most astonishing scientific and technological breakthroughs of the Second World War. In Most Secret War he details how Britain stealthily stole the war from under the Germans' noses by outsmarting their intelligence at every turn. He tells of the 'battle of the beams'; detecting and defeating flying bombs; using chaff to confuse radar; and many other ingenious ideas and devices. Jones was the man with the plan to save Britain and his story makes for riveting reading.

John Dickson Carr, master of the Golden Age British-style whodunit, delivers a dazzling historical mystery set in Restoration London In England, the Civil War is finished, Cromwell is dead, and the monarch Charles II sits happily upon the throne. It is a fine time to be rich, young, and bold—and there are few in the kingdom more daring than Roderick Kinsmere. A country boy come to London to become a man, Roderick is drawn into a whirlwind of danger that will not slow until the streets of the metropolis are stained with blood. With the monarchy depending on him, Roderick knows survival will mean a quick study in the arts of court intrigue, piracy, and swashbuckling romance—and that somehow everything centers on the beautiful sapphire ring he inherited from his father.

Orford Ness was so secret a place that most people have never heard of it. The role it played in inventing and testing weapons over the course of the twentieth century was far more significant and much longer than that of Bletchley Park. Nestled on a remote part of the Suffolk coast, Orford Ness operated for over eighty years as a highly classified research and testing site for the British military, the Atomic Weapons Reserach Establishment and, at one point, even the US Department of Defence. The work conducted here by some of the greatest 'boffins' of past generations played a cruicial role in winning the three great wars of the twentieth century: the First, Second and the Cold. Hosting dangerous early night flying and parachute testing during the First World War, the ingenious radar trials by Watson Watt and his team in the 1930s, through to the testing of nuclear bombs and the top-secret UK-US COBRA MIST project, the 'Ness' has been at the forefront of military technology from 1913 to the 1990s. Now a unique National Trust property and National Nature Reserve, its secrets have remained buried until recently. This book reveals an incredible history, rich with ingenuity, intrigue and typical British inventiveness.

Dubbed an "agent of British imperialism" by Joseph Stalin, Reginald Teague-Jones (1889- 1988) was the quintessential English spy whose exceptional story is recounted in this new biography. He studied in St Petersburg, participated in the 1905 Revolution and spent the rest of his life working for various branches of British secret intelligence. Plunging into the Great Game, he participated in daring operations against the Bolsheviks and tracked down a turbulent German agent, Wilhelm Wassmuss, who was spreading anti-British propaganda in Persia. Teague-Jones was also held responsible for the execution of 'the 26 Commissars' after the fall of the Baku Commune in 1918. This became one of the Soviet Union's most powerful cults of martyrology, inspiring a poem by Yesenin, a Brodsky painting, a 1933 feature film and an immense monument. Shortly after, Teague-Jones changed his name to Ronald Sinclair and adopted a secret persona for the next five decades, for part of which he worked undercover in the United States as an expert on Indian, Soviet and Middle-Eastern affairs, possibly in collaboration with the OSS, the new American secret service. In his swan song in espionage he kept a gimlet eye on the Soviet delegation to the UN in New York. For these reasons, and many others besides, Reginald Teague-Jones is the most important British spy you have never heard of.

Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War is New York Times bestselling author Steve Sheinkin's award-winning nonfiction account of an ordinary man who wielded the most dangerous weapon: the truth. “Easily the best study of the Vietnam War available for teen readers.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) A YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Award winner A National Book Award finalist A Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books Blue Ribbon book A Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Young Adult Literature finalist Selected for the Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People List In 1964, Daniel Ellsberg was a U.S. government analyst, helping to plan a war in Vietnam. It was the height of the Cold War, and the government would do anything to stop the spread of communism—with or without the consent of the American people. As the fighting in Vietnam escalated, Ellsberg turned against the war. He had access a top-secret government report known as the Pentagon Papers, and he knew it could blow the lid off of years of government lies. But did he have the right to expose decades of presidential secrets? And what would happen to him if he did it? A lively book that interrogates the meanings of patriotism, freedom, and integrity, the National Book Award finalist Most Dangerous further establishes Steve Sheinkin—author of Newbery Honor book Bomb as a leader in children's nonfiction. This thoroughly-researched and documented book can be worked into multiple aspects of the common core curriculum. “Gripping.”—New York Times Book Review “A master of fast-paced histories...[this] is Sheinkin’s most compelling one yet. ”—Washington Post Also by Steve Sheinkin: Bomb: The Race to Build—and Steal—the World's Most Dangerous Weapon The Notorious Benedict Arnold: A True Story of Adventure, Heroism & Treachery Undefeated: Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights Which Way to the Wild West?: Everything Your Schoolbooks Didn't Tell You About Westward Expansion King George: What Was His Problem?: Everything Your Schoolbooks Didn't Tell You About the American Revolution Two Miserable Presidents: Everything Your Schoolbooks Didn't Tell You About the Civil War Born to Fly: The First Women's Air Race Across America

Jane Stowe frequently finds her irritable father, peevish stepmother, and half brother Rupert a trial. Her only hope of eventual escape is her maternal uncle, Roger Markham, whose heir she is. When he dies under mysterious circumstances, Jane is the obvious suspect. Alex Gordon, family misfit, has been sent to find out if there’s anything to Markham’s suspicions about the schooner Sea Mew. With half the Continent at war, and the Young Pretender recently landed in Scotland, the matter may be of critical importance. Once Alex ferrets out—with Jane’s assistance—the connection between the Sea Mew and Jacobite activity, he is told to leave the rest to the professionals. But the professionals have no stake in saving Jane from the gallows or Rupert from a charge of treason.

Most Secret is a novel by Nevil Shute, written in 1942 but censored until 1945, when it was published by Pan Books. It is narrated by a commander in the Royal Navy, and tells the story of four officers who launch a daring mission at the time when Britain stood alone against Germany after the fall of France. Genevieve is a converted French fishing vessel, manned by four British officers and a small crew of Free French ex-fishermen, armed only with a flame thrower and small arms. Their task is as much psychological as military: to show the Germans that they will one day be beaten back.

Young Roderick Kinsmere was a country bumpkin when he strolled into the Great Court of Charles II's Whitehall Palace. Three days later he had lost his fortune, gained a wife, fought for - and been outwitted by - his king, and no one would ever call Rowdy Kinsmere a bumpkin again. It was 1670 and London was a teeming, filthy, dangerous and splendiferous place. The king was in trouble and Roderick was surrounded by plots and counterplots. And somehow everything centred on the beautiful sapphire ring he had inherited from his father ... 'Mr Carr has contrived a fine, adventurous entertainment of politics and piracy, espionage and murder' The Times

In today's world of satellites and electronic eavesdropping it is hard to appreciate the difficulties involved two centuries ago in collecting and disseminating secret intelligence in time of war. This book treats readers to a close-up look at the ingenious methods used to obtain and analyze secret material and deliver it to operational forces at sea. It brings together information from a variety of sources to provide the first concise analysis of the use and development of intelligence in the days of fighting sail. The British experience from 1793 to 1815 is the book's main focus, but it also includes French and American activity. In addition the book examines how commanders used the information to develop strategy and tactics and win--or sometime lose--battles. A naval intelligence officer himself, author Steven Maffeo illustrates the role of this ""dark craft"" by concentrating on the experiences of Lord Nelson and his contemporaries. A profoundly complex figure, Nelson epitomized the active acquisition of intelligence and the bold execution of decisions based on an understanding of the material, and Maffeo offers fresh and illuminating information that supports the admiral's high regard for intelligence work. Reading at times like a cloak-and-dagger mystery, the story is filled with examples of how Nelson and his associates dealt with intelligence obstacles and how the outcomes affected their own futures, and, in some cases, the history of the modern world. Maffeo's anecdotes give marvelous insight into the thoughts of the era's important figures, Bonaparte, Pitt, Spencer, and Cochrane--not to mention C.S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower and Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey and Maturin. The author's winning combination of vibrant narrative and zeal for accuracy assures this book a place in the libraries of military and intelligence professionals, historians, and Forester and O'Brian aficionados.

North Korea is like no other tyranny on earth. Its citizens are told their home is the greatest nation on earth. Big Brother is always watching: It is Orwell's 1984 made reality.Award-winning BBC journalist John Sweeney is one of the few foreign journalists to have witnessed the devastating reality of life in the controversial and isolated nation of North Korea, having entered the country undercover, posing as a university professor with a group of students from the London School of Economics. Huge factories with no staff or electricity; hospitals with no patients; uniformed child soldiers; and the world-famous and eerily empty DMZ—the DeMilitarized Zone, where North Korea ends and South Korea begins—all framed by the relentless flow of regime propaganda from omnipresent loudspeakers. Free speech is an illusion: one word out of line and the gulag awaits. State spies are everywhere, ready to punish disloyalty and the slightest sign of discontent.Drawing on his own experiences and his extensive interviews with defectors and other key witnesses, Sweeney's North Korea Undercover pulls back the curtain, providing a rare insight into life there today, examining the country's troubled history and addressing important questions about its uncertain future.