James Leasor – författare

THEY DON'T MAKE THEM LIKE THAT ANY MORE introduces the earthy and likeable proprietor of Aristo Autos who deals in vintage cars - not forgetting Sara, supercharged with sexual promise, who whets his curiosity and rouses his interest. ln the process of becoming a reluctant hero, he spins across France, Spain and Switzerland, on the track of a rare Mercedes too badly wanted by too many dangerous men.

Passport to Oblivion is the first case book of Dr. Jason Love . . . country doctor turned secret agent.Multi-million selling, published in 19 languages around the world and filmed as Where the Spies Are starring David Niven.'As K pushed his way through the glass doors of the Park Hotel, he realized instinctively why the two stumpy men were waiting by the reception desk. They had come to kill him. ...' Who was K - and why should anyone kill him? Who was the bruised girl in Rome? Why did a refugee strangle his mistress in an hotel on the edge of the Arctic Circle? And why, in a small office above a wholesale fruiterers in Covent Garden, did a red-haired Scot sift through filing cabinets for the name of a man he knew in Burma twenty years ago? None of these questions might seem to concern Dr Jason Love, a country practitioner of Bishop's Combe, Somerset. But, in the end, they all do.Apart from his patients, Dr Love has apparently only two outside interests: his supercharged Cord roadster, and the occasional Judo lessons he gives to the local branch of the British Legion. But out of the past, to which all forgotten things should belong, a man comes to see him - and his simple, everyday country-life world is shattered like a mirror by a .38 bullet.

When Singapore fell to the Japanese on 15 February 1942, it was a devastating blow to the Allies, the British Empire and signalled a significant turning point in history. It was the greatest defeat for Britain since Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown in the American War of Independence. Its impact was arguably even greater.James Leasor’s story begins as far back as the early nineteenth century, with imperialism and the settlement founded by Sir Stamford Raffles. He charts the years leading up to Singapore’s defeat and the realisation that the West was not invincible.  Written just over 20 years after the end of WW2, it includes direct, first hand input from many of the main players involved including that of Lt-Gen Percival, the British commander who signed the surrender document, shortly before he died.

In 1942 radar expert Jack Nissenthall volunteered for a suicidal mission to join a combat team who were making a surprise landing at Dieppe in occupied France. His assignment was to penetrate a German radar station on a cliff above "Green Beach". Because Nissenthall knew the secrets of British and US radar technology, he was awarded a personal bodyguard of sharpshooters. Their orders were to protect him, but in the event of possible capture to kill him. His choice was to succeed or die. The story of what happened to him and his bodyguards in nine hours under fire is one of World War II's most terrifying true stories of personal heroism.

Filmed as The Sea Wolves, this is the story of the undercover exploit of a territorial unit. The Germans had a secret transmitter on one of their ships in the neutral harbour of Goa. Its purpose was to guide the U-boats against Allied shipping in the Indian Ocean. There seemed no way for the British to infringe Goa�s Portuguese neutrality by force. But the transmitter had to be silenced. SOE was tasked with dealing with the problem, but how? Then it was remembered that 1,400 miles away in Calcutta was a source of possible help. A group of civilian bankers, merchants and solicitors were the remains of an old territorial unit called The Calcutta Light Horse. With a foreword by Earl Mountbatten of Burma.

Follow the Drum is a story of men and women caught in a cataclysm of mutiny, hatred, fear and passion. India, in the mid-nineteenth century, was virtually nun by a British commercial concern, the Honourable East India Trading Company, whose directors would pay tribute to one Indian ruler and the depose another in their efforts to maintain their balance sheet of power and profit. To back up their decisions they maintained an Indian native army with British officers helped, when needed, by British regular troops. But great changes were already casting dark shadows across the land. The electric telegraph, the steamship and the railway were shrinking distances, while missionaries were preaching new gospels. Indian soldiers feared that their ancient traditions were being eroded, and when a stupid order was given to use cartridges greased with cow fat and pig lard (one animal sacred to Hindus and the other abhorrent to Moslems) there was mutiny. Even then, the British senior officers, many of them drink-sodden and long past retiring age, did not realise the magnitude of the opposition to them. They responded by having sepoys fired from guns and disbanding whole regiments, which, instead of calming tempers, merely accelerated the eruption of the Indian Mutiny. In the terrible days of the burning summer of 1857, the British, outnumbered in some garrisons by ten to one, in others by a thousand to one, fought back for bare survival. Conventional leaders were thus frequently displaced by unconventional men, such as Hodson and Nicholson, who brought daring new conceptions and mobility to waging war. The lives of millions were changed for ever; among them the Indian ruler, Nana Sahib, who bore a grudge against the British; Arabella MacDonald, the courageous and hot-blooded daughter of an English regular officer; the old King of Delhi, toothless and enfeebled, a virtual prisoner of the people he tried to rule; Richard Lang, an idealistic nineteen-year-old who began that year as a boy and ended it as a man. Follow the Drum is a documentary novel of tremendous sweep of action and descriptive power, in which fact and fiction are blended into compelling narrative.

"A volunteer was urgently required for a secret assignment of the highest priority. He must be of non-Jewish appearance, speak German perfectly, and preferably have a German or Austrian background. A good knowledge of French on a conversational level was also desirable. ...This man would be required to work in dangerous circumstances, totally on his own." James Leasor first heard of The Unknown Warrior's unique assignment from Major General Sir Leslie Hollis, KCB, KBE, Senior Military Assistant Secretary to the War Cabinet and Chiefs of Staff Committee. Some years later, when more had been made public about the immense secret contribution to victory of these deception plans, Sir Ronald Wingate, Bt., CB, CMG, CIE, OBE, recalled this episode, in which he had played such an important part. At that time, James Leasor was working on Green Beach, which described an incident in the 1942 Dieppe landing, when another volunteer, Flight-Sergeant Jack Nissen, a radar expert in the RAF, accompanied the Canadians to assess a new German radar station at Pourville. Because of Nissen's knowledge of Allied radar, orders were given that if capture seemed likely he was to be killed by his escort of 12 soldiers. Lord Mountbatten was horrified at these orders. He remarked that there had been no need whatever to put radar secret at risk when members of X-Troop were trained for such tasks. He suggested that James Leasor should write a book based on the experiences of these men. The Unknown Warrior is the true story of one of these men and his amazing part in the deception plans to persuade the Germans that the invasion would happen near Calais and not in Normandy and thus ensure that they did not commit their reserves until too late. Born to a humble German background, with a Jewish father and Catholic mother, he was brought up as English due to a mix-up when he was very small. Not really sure of his real name or nationality he is initially interned by the British but enlists for service and ends up in X-Troop. He volunteers for an unknown secret mission which sees him dropped in France, pursued by both the Resistance and the Germans, briefing first Rommel and then Hitler in a role that saved perhaps thousands of lives.

‘A remarkable tale, either the man should have been court-martialled - or he should have received instant promotion and a decoration.’ Winston ChurchillThis is a true and inspiring story of triumph over incredible adversity.A Royal Marine who, having been wounded in the early stages of the Japanese invasion of Burma in WW2, undertakes a long and solitary march through the length of country to escape the advancing enemy. He then has to find his way across India and back to Britain to report for duty in Plymouth.On his journey William Doyle has many encounters and adventures and helps a wide variety of British, Indian and Burmese refugees using skills that he had gained during his training and earlier life.Once he reaches safety Doyle then has to overcome complete disbelief by the authorities that a single man could walk out of Burma with nothing but his orders - to report to HQ - and his own initiative.‘An amazing and inspiring story.’ BBC Radio

A year after the Crimean War ended, an uprising broke out in India which was to have equal impact on the balance of world power and the British Empire's role in world affairs.The revolt was against the East India Company which, not entirely against its will, had assumed responsibility for administering large parts of India. The ostensible cause of the mutiny sprang from a rumour that cartridges used by the native Sepoy troops were greased with cow's fat and pig's lard —cows being sacred to the Hindus, and pigs abhorred by the Mohammedans.But the roots of the trouble lay far deeper, and a bloody and ineptly handled war ensued. The Red Fort is a breathtaking account of the struggle, with all its cruelties, blunderings and heroic courage.When peace was finally restored, the India we know today began to emerge.

From The Great Escape to The Colditz Story, readers have become familiar with the many stories of British wartime escapes. But what of German prisoners in British hands? Did they try as persistently as their British counterparts to escape? Did they bait their guards with similar ironic humour and with horseplay often carried to dangerous extremes? Were similar epics of courage and endurance enacted unknown to us on our own soil and on the surrounding seas? How were our prisoners fed, interrogated, guarded? In other words, how did we treat them? These questions are all answered in the first book to tell the full story of Franz von Werra, a Luftwaffe officer escaping in England, set against the background of our own familiar countryside, and with our own countrymen'police, soldiers, home guards, shepherds, bus conductors and booking clerks playing the unfamiliar roles of pursuer and sometimes unconscious abettor of one of the most ingenious and brazen of all escapers. Based on von Werra's own account, this exciting story provides a fascinating insight to the war from the German point of view.