Xavier: A British Secret Agent With The French Resistance

Colonel Richard Heslop, alias Xavier, was one of Britain's greatest Special Operations agents in France. Ingeniously orchestrating resistance groups and ruthlessly sabotaging German operations, Xavier played a crucial role in Allied espionage during the war, from late 1942 right through to D-Day.

Sent to France in the middle of the conflict, he delicately balanced clandestine missions and dangerous wartime operations on a daily basis, yet his name barely gets a mention in the accounts of the Special Operations Executive (SOE), making this insight all the more fascinating.

It is clear that Xavier's role was like no other. It was a job that involved frequent encounters with the terrifying possibilities of capture, torture and death; it was a job where a careless whisper could deliver a man into the hands of the Gestapo; and it was a job that involved acts of sabotage, espionage, theft, and sometimes even murder.

Xavier is a dramatic and compelling account of courage and endurance in the face of a merciless enemy - the true story of one of Britain's greatest secret agents.