The Illusionist: The True Story of the Man Who Fooled Hitler

The astonishing story of how in 1942, in Egypt, Colonel Dudley Clarke's ingenious "A Force" thwarted the Nazis while inventing a whole new playbook of military deception.
Cairo, 1942: If you had asked a British officer who Colonel Clarke was, they would have been able to point him out. Always ready with a drink and a story, Clarke was a well-known figure in Cairo social circles and nightlife. If you then asked what he did, you would have less success. Those who knew didn't tell—and almost no one really knew at all.
Clarke thought of himself as developing a new kind of weapon. Its components? Rumor, stagecraft, a sense of fun. Its target? The mind of Erwin Rommel, Hitler's greatest general. Throughout history, military commanders have sought to mislead their opponents. Dudley Clarke set out to do it on a scale no one had imagined before. Even afterwards, almost no one understood the magnitude of his achievement.
Drawing on recently released...