A scion of one of the most storied families in France, Robert de la Rochefoucald was raised in magnificent castles and chateaus and educated at the finest schools. When the Nazis invaded and imprisoned his father, Rochefoucald joined the British SOE—Churchill’s Special Operations Executive known as the “Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.” Trained in the dark arts of spycraft and combat—from cracking a safe to making and planting bombs to killing with his bare hands—he returned to France. Helping to organize the resistance, the Allied spy and saboteur blew up fortified compounds, train stations, and munitions factories, interfered with Germans’ war-time missions, and executed Nazi officers. Caught by the Germans, Rochefoucald withstood months of torture without cracking, and escaped his own death, not once but twice.

The Saboteur recounts Rochefoucauld’s enthralling adventures, from escaping from a moving tr