Target: Italy

The cloak-and-dagger war fought by British secret agents against Mussolini's Italy has been little known - until now. Target: Italy is the official history of the efforts of Britain's Special Operations Executive to strike at Fascist Italy in the Second World War and sever its alliance with Nazi Germany. Drawing on declassified documents, it reveals missions as remarkable as a plot to assassinate Mussolini and plans to arm the Mafia, and brings home the risks that secret agencies run when trying to undermine well-entrenched regimes. A powerful tale of desperate daring, tragic sacrifice and long-held wartime secrets.

Roderick Bailey is a historian of resistance and clandestine warfare. His first book, The Wildest Province, based on his PhD, was an acclaimed account of SOE exploits in the Axis-occupied Balkans. Currently a research fellow at Oxford University, he is a graduate of Cambridge and Edinburgh Universities and former Alistair Horne Fellow at St Antony's College, Oxford. He has also served in Afghanistan with the British Army.