{"product_id":"the-man-who-was-saturday-9780008309084","title":"The Man Who Was Saturday","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSOLDIER, ESCAPER, SPYMASTER, POLITICIAN  Airey Neave was assassinated in the House of Commons car park in 1979. Forty years after his death, Patrick Bishop's lively, action-packed biography examines the life, heroic war and death of one of Britain's most remarkable 20th century figures.Airey Neave was one of the most extraordinary figures of his generation. Taken prisoner during WW2, he was the first British officer to escape from Colditz and using the code name Saturday' became a key figure in the IS9 escape and evasion organisation which spirited hundreds of Allied airmen and soldiers out of Occupied Europe. A lawyer by training, he served the indictments on the Nazi leaders at the Nuremburg war trials. An ardent Cold War warrior, he was mixed up in several of the great spy scandals of the period.Most people might consider these achievements enough for a single career, but he went on to become the man who made Margaret Thatcher, mounting a brilliantly manipulative campaign in the 197\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Sympathetic, magnificent … This exemplary biography is a timely corrective when the fashion is for politicians to run away after they suffer a setback’ \u003cem\u003eTimes\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e           \u003cp\u003e‘Neave was a brave, modest and decent man. Bishop shows him also to be complex, sometimes troubled, and more interesting than many who did not know him understood. He deserves a first-rate biography, and Bishop has written it’ \u003cem\u003eDaily Telegraph\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e           \u003cp\u003e‘It succeeds triumphantly. Masterly on military matters, sympathetic, psychologically acute and alert to irony’ \u003cem\u003eSunday Telegraph\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e           \u003cp\u003e‘Bishop writes with admirable brevity and insight’\u003cem\u003e Sunday Times\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e           \u003cp\u003e             \u003cstrong\u003ePraise for Patrick Bishop:\u003c\/strong\u003e           \u003c\/p\u003e           \u003cp\u003e‘This is a terrifically readable, authoritative book that told me many fascinating things I did not know’ Max Hastings, \u003cem\u003eSunday Times\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e           \u003cp\u003e‘As a former war correspondent with more than 30 years’ experience, Bishop brings journalistic strengths to his second career as a popular historian: an easily readable and exciting writing style, a knowledge of what fighting means to those at the sharp end, a nose for the nub of the story, and an admirable compassion for the victims of war on all sides…a book that at once educates, explains, and excites’ \u003cem\u003eBBC History magazine\u003c\/em\u003e, Book of the Month\u003c\/p\u003e           \u003cp\u003e‘Monumental … after Bishop's pilot's eye views of the war in Fighter Boys and Bomber Boys, Air Force Blue counts as a publishing event. It won't disappoint” \u003cem\u003eTimes\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e           \u003cp\u003e‘Compelling … Mr Bishop has an enormous tale to tell as he leads up to 1939 and six years of formative war…what Mr. Bishop does so well is to show how the RAF came to be such a distinctive and effective force’ \u003cem\u003eCountry Life\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e           \u003cp\u003e‘Full of excellent and vivid stories, this terrifically readable and authoritative book tells the dramatic story of the RAF during the Second World War’ \u003cem\u003eSunday Times\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e           \u003cp\u003e‘This meticulously compiled survey sets out to combine encomium with a series of unblinkered evaluations’ \u003cem\u003eTLS\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"HarperCollins Publishers","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51017443475799,"sku":"9780008309084","price":999.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9780008309084.jpg?v=1750773595","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/the-man-who-was-saturday-9780008309084","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}