A Groundbreaking new thriller by the former Commander of Special Branch who rose to a position co-ordinating all the secret services in London. This is a landmark debut novel for those who like insider fiction in the mould of Stella Rimington. Agent of the State is filled with the kind of authentic detail only a man in the know would be able to tell. A suspected terrorist is frisked for explosives on the Embankment. Operators do this so skilfully he remains completely unaware... In New Scotland Yard a new brand of manager fails to deal with escalating threats
- 'aggressive indecision' is what Detective Chief Inspector John Kerr calls it... He discovers that cocaine-fuelled sex parties in Knightsbridge are pulling in businessmen Russian diplomats & senior members of the British government... When Kerr's investigations are blocked by his bosses in Scotland Yard he decides to go it alone & begins to expose a cover-up that extends to all levels of the British Establishment. Agent of the State is the first novel by Roger Pearce a former Special Branch officer at New Scotland Yard who rose to become its Commander & a key player in Whitehall's intelligence network. It is an authentic account of the way the British intelligence services work at all levels & of the hypocrisy of the British establishment. ' Vividly written & delivering a glimpse of what counter-terrorism feels like it's a highly promising start from a writer who could well have a big future.' Daily Mail ' It's a tribute to Roger Pearce's ability that the plot never becomes impenetrable & there's an uncomfortable authenticity as real-life operations are referenced...a breathless hurtling page-turner.' Financial Times
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The life & poignant death of one of Britain's bravest women. In September 2010 the body of Eileen Nearne was found in a flat in Torquay. With no known friends or relatives a council burial was arranged. A police search of her belongings found wartime French currency & wartime medals. Further investigation revealed that she was one of 40 women sent into France by the SOE the Special Operations Executive Churchill's top secret wartime 'spook' organisation. Her story & her poignant death as a recluse became an international media sensation. Being fluent in French Eileen was identified early in the war by the SOE as a potential agent. After spending time as a wireless operator picking up transmissions from agents in the field & decoding them she was chosen to be parachuted into occupied France underwent paramilitary training & was assigned the codename 'ROSE'. After working in dangerous conditions in Paris for several months she was captured interrogated & tortured. Keeping to her story that she was an unwitting French girl caught up in resistance work she was transferred to a series of concentration camps in Germany. She miraculously escaped from a concentration camp in early 1945. Eileen had difficulty adjusting to living in post-war Britain suffered from a nervous breakdown & eventually became a recluse.

Includes:: 40 illustrations 10 in colour.

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This is the Second World War career of the longest serving double agent in the Double Cross system Harry Williamson. Harry operated from September 1940 to the end of war after initially being parachuted into England by the Nazi secret service the Abwehr. He was quickly caught & taken to Camp 020 for interrogation by the team led by the famous Colonel ' Tin-Eye' Stephens. He eventually agreed to work as a double agent with the cover name TATE & went on to send more than a thousand messages during the war for the Double Cross organization who's aim was to supply disinformation to the Nazi regime. Harry took part in the famous D-Day deception provided the Nazis with misinformation about the damage caused by the V1 & V2 rockets & misled the German Navy with faulty intelligence over U-boat minefields critical to the success of British convoys. After the war he settled in Watford & worked as a photographer. He was almost completely anonymous (although still protected by MI5) partly through fear of revenge until his name was revealed in the 1990s. ...

Pools winner & total wazzock Dennis Sidebottom has moved next door to Ben
- bringing his squeaky-clean kids with him. The Crane
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One December night in 1942 a Nazi parachutist landed in a Cambridgeshire field. His mission: to sabotage the British war effort. His name was Eddie Chapman but he would shortly become MI5's Agent Zigzag. Dashing & louche courageous & unpredictable the traitor was a patriot inside & the villain a hero. The problem for Chapman his many lovers & his spymasters was knowing who he was. Ben Macintyre weaves together diaries letters photographs memories & top-secret MI5 files to create the exhilarating account of Britain's most sensational double agent. ...

Ex-deniable operator Nick Stone seems to be living his dream not a care in the world as he steers his camper van round the surfing & parachuting paradise of Australia a board on the roof a freefall rig behind him & a beautiful young backpacker at his side. But when he sees a news report of the massacre of women & children in a terrorist outrage the other side of the world long-suppressed memories are triggered & Nick knows he must risk everything to repay a longstanding debt of friendship. As events unfold in the bleak medieval villages of Georgia & teeming streets of modern Istanbul Nick finds himself catapulted once more into the murky clandestine world he thought hed left behind
- a world in the grip of nameless enemies who linger in the shadows & stalk the corridors of power... Hurtled at breakneck pace through a deadly landscape of greed violence & ever-shifting allegiances the reader will be left in no doubt that Mc Nab is the master of the genre
- & Aggressor" shows Mc Nab at his searing blockbusting best."

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A sneak peek at up-&-coming trends in IT a multidimensional vision for achieving business agility through agile architectures The Agile Architecture Revolution places IT trends into the context of Enterprise Architecture reinventing Enterprise Architecture to support continuous business transformation. It focuses on the challenges of large organizations while placing such organizations into the broader business ecosystem that

Includes:: small & midsize organizations as well as startups. Organizes the important trends that are facing technology in businesses & public sector organizations today & over the next several years Presents the five broad organizing principles called Supertrends: location independence global cubicle democratization of technology deep interoperability & complex systems engineering Provides a new perspective on service-oriented architecture in conjunction with architectural approaches to cloud computing & mobile technologies that explain how organizations can achieve better business visibility through IT & enterprise architecture Laying out a multidimensional vision for achieving agile architectures this book discusses the crisis points that promise sudden transformative change unraveling how organizations' spending on IT will continue to undergo radical change over the next ten years.

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The First Guide to Scrum-Based Agile Product Management In Agile Product Management with Scrum leading Scrum consultant Roman Pichler uses real-world examples to demonstrate how product owners can create successful products with Scrum. He describes a broad range of agile product management practices including making agile product discovery work taking advantage of emergent requirements creating the minimal marketable product leveraging early customer feedback & working closely with the development team. Benefitting from Pichler's extensive experience you'll learn how Scrum product ownership differs from traditional product management & how to avoid & overcome the common challenges that Scrum product owners face. Coverage

Includes:: * Understanding the product owner's role: what product owners do how they do it & the surprising implications * Envisioning the product: creating a compelling product vision to galvanize & guide the team & stakeholders * Grooming the product backlog: managing the product backlog effectively even for the most complex products * Planning the release: bringing clarity to scheduling budgeting & functionality decisions * Collaborating in sprint meetings: understanding the product owner's role in sprint meetings including the dos & don'ts * Transitioning into product ownership: succeeding as a product owner & establishing the role in the enterprise This book is an indispensable resource for anyone who works as a product owner or expects to do so as well as executives & coaches interested in establishing agile product management.

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Be flexible & faster with Agile project management As mobile & web technologies continue to evolve rapidly there is added pressure to develop & implement software projects in weeks instead of months. Agile Project Management For Dummies can make that happen. This is the first book to provide a simple step-by-step guide to Agile Project Management approaches tools & techniques. With the fast pace of mobile & web technology development software project development must keep pace; Agile Project Management enables developers to complete & implement projects more quickly & this book shows you how. Offers a practical context for understanding & applying Agile techniques moving from theory into actual practice Explains when to use Agile & how to avoid common pitfalls Written by experts who know how to apply the principles in real-world situations Agile Project Management For Dummies enables you to understand & apply Agile principles for faster more accurate development. ...

The rules & practices for Scrum a simple process for managing complex projects are few straightforward & easy to learn. But Scrum s simplicity itself its lack of prescription can be disarming & new practitioners often find themselves reverting to old project management habits & tools & yielding lesser results. In this illuminating series of case studies Scrum co-creator & evangelist Ken Schwaber identifies the real-world lessons the successes & failures culled from his years of experience coaching companies in agile project management. Through them you ll understand how to use Scrum to solve complex problems & drive better results delivering more valuable software faster. Gain the foundation in Scrum theory & practice you need to: Rein in even the most complex unwieldy projects Effectively manage unknown or changing product requirements Simplify the chain of command with self-managing development teams Receive clearer specifications & feedback from customers Greatly reduce project planning time & required tools Build & release products in 30-day cycles so clients get deliverables earlier Avoid missteps by regularly inspecting reporting on & fine-tuning projects Support multiple teams working on a large-scale project from many geographic locations Maximize return on investment! ...