The secret of SOE’s code war revealed for the first time... ‘As a comedy about the British at war, Leo Marks’s book ranks with the fiction of Anthony Powell and Evelyn Waugh.’ Observer
· This is the witty, engrossing and highly personalised account of Leo Marks’s experiences during the Second World War. He worked for the SOE – responsible for placing, monitoring and communicating with all British secret agents working in enemy territory. Marks played a crucial role, re-inventing how agents sent coded messages back to London and using every trick in the book to get his way.
· Between Silk and Cyanide is a great mixture of high level espionage, cynical commentary on government power struggles, human feeling for the agents risking everything for the war effort, and a keen sense of the absurd.
‘Leo Marks never made it into the field himself. But his memoirs are as explosive as any sabotage conducted by those who did... Leo Marks never once loses contact with the personal courage and sufferings of the agents in the field, the reality which so shames the Whitehall warriors in the eyes of posterity... His tale is by turns fiery, scabrous, infuriating and deeply tragic. The eyes mist over, the throat constricts; the heart thumps. I found Between Silk and Cyanide impossible to put down.’ DONALD CAMERON WATT, Independent
‘Irrepressibly witty and readable chronicle of a Candide in the madhouse of secret bureaucracy... It’s made up of reconstructed dialogue and amazing anecdote. Many readers who think they are allergic to Maths will be astounded to find themselves reading and even grasping the devilish poetry of figure-ciphering... But at the centre of the Book is the black mystery of the worst disaster of Britain’s secret war. The fun and satire of Between Silk and Cyanide sparkle against a dark background of anger and grief.’ Neal Ascherson, Observer
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
This is a moving memoir of the agents like Odette and Noor Inayat Khan, whose fates we already know and whom he tried in vain to protect. This is a powerful memoir of war, responsibility and guilt; Marks, hitherto famous as screenwriter on Peeping Tom and son of the 84 Charing Cross Road family, has written a classic. --Roz Kaveney
"The Washington Post"
A welcome and powerfully affecting chapter of World War II history, and a very human story of the most clandestine and cerebral art of making war.
Richard Bernstein
"The New York Times"
An enthralling book, one full of an eccentric charm as well as fascinating, previously undisclosed details of the secret war waged in the occupied countries.
"The New York Times Book Review"
ƯA¨ spellbinding real-life thriller....A compelling insider's view to the shadow war: intrigue and treachery, double-dealing and deception, hope and despair, triumph and tragedy.
Martin Scorsese
A mesmerizing account of World War II as fought on the home front in Great Britain by the ingenious codemakers whose work determined the life and death of the Allied agents in occupied Europe. Leo Marks, a brilliant cryptographer, is a masterful and passionate storyteller. I was immediately swept into his secret world of codes and "undecipherables," trying at times (without success) to unravel the puzzles myself, and found it difficult to put down the book until the drama had come to an end.
"The New York Times Book Review"
[A] spellbinding real-life thriller....A compelling insider's view to the shadow war: intrigue and treachery, double-dealing and deception, hope and despair, triumph and tragedy.
David Kahn author of "The Codebreakers" Many are the books about codebreaking. Few, if any, exist about codemaking, even though it is more important to keep one's own secrets than to learn the enemy's. Leo Marks has written one at last -- and one that is illuminating, gripping, and very human.
Martin Scorsese "Between Silk and Cyanide" is a mesmerizing account of World War II as fought on the home front in Great Britain by the ingenious codemakers whose work determined the life and death of the Allied agents in occupied Europe. Leo Marks, a brilliant cryptographer, is a masterful and passionate storyteller. I was immediately swept into his secret world of codes and "undecipherables," trying at times (without success) to unravel the puzzles myself, and found it difficult to put down the book until the drama had come to an end.
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