V for Vengeance

Book excerpt: 'Before there was James Bond, there was Gregory Sallust.' Tina Rosenberg, Salon.com V for Vengeance is the fifth in Dennis Wheatley's bestselling Gregory Sallust series featuring the debonair spy Gregory Sallust, a forerunner to Ian Fleming's James Bond. France has fallen to the Nazis, and British secret agent Gregory Sallust is in Vichy, as determined as ever to overthrow the iron rule of the Third Reich. Nursed back to health by Madeleine Lavalliere, he leaves Paris just as the Germans march into the capital. Little does he realise that there is more to Madeleine than meets the eye, and that he was destined to meet up with her once more. Together they evolve a plan which could inflict irreparable damage upon the Nazis, but one so dangerous that their escape is in no way guaranteed. "Without a doubt, Mr. Wheatley's best espionage yarn to date." The New York Times