Rogue Heroes

David Stirling was a young aristocrat who seemed to drift through life, yet behind that air of aimlessness sat a sharp strategic mind. While most of his fellow officers studied a map of the Second World War and saw only a long, grinding contest of attrition, Stirling saw a gap. A handful of exceptional soldiers, dropped by parachute behind Nazi lines, could wreck enemy aircraft and supply stores before anyone knew they were there.

His superiors had little patience for the idea, and Stirling went ahead regardless. The unit he built became Britain's Special Air Service, the SAS, a force that broke with orthodox military thinking and changed how wars could be fought, not only how one particular war would turn out.

Ben Macintyre, known for his narratives of wartime espionage and deception, tells the story with full access to the SAS archives. That material lets him draw back the curtain on a unit that stayed hidden for decades, and he follows its unlikely founders and fighters with a close eye for the details that bring them to life. The result is a fast-moving account of daring, improvisation and nerve in the desert war. The book also inspired a television series.