The Last Secret

On a cold February day in 1944, a British spy knelt in a Northamptonshire field, staring into a crate of onions. Hidden inside were Nazi explosives, smuggled aboard a merchant ship in Gibraltar and bound for British ships, planes and factories. He began to dismantle the bomb, dictating every move into a field telephone. One slip, and he would be blown to pieces. His name was Victor Rothschild-and he was one of the richest men in England. Darkly handsome, dazzlingly clever and unflinchingly brave, Rothschild was a rising star of British intelligence. A Cambridge scientist, first-class cricketer and heir to the legendary banking dynasty, he had been recruited by MI5 to run its counter-sabotage unit. Between Blitz parties and midnight briefings, he hunted Nazi agents, disarmed bombs disguised as bananas, coal and horse dung, and helped shape Britain's secret war. But Rothschild's greatest threat wasn't German - it was personal. His closest friends from Cambridge, Anthony Blunt and Guy Burgess, had shared his flat, his table, and his trust. He helped them into positions of national importance. What he didn't know: both were Soviet spies. The Last Secret is a true story of loyalty and betrayal, courage and misjudgment - of a brilliant British agent who trusted the wrong men. Drawing on newly released MI5 files and unheard testimony, it reveals, for the first time, the remarkable secret life of Victor Rothschild, and his decades-long quest to bring his former friends to justice.