Early in the Second World War, Paddy Bennett becomes personal secretary to Ian Fleming, a brilliant, womanizing intelligence agent who will go on to invent the character of James Bond. They and their fellow agents brainstorm increasingly inventive ways to defeat Hitler, resulting in a scheme so brazen that Paddy initially dismisses it as a fantasy— dressing up a beached corpse with fake documents to mislead the Axis powers about a planned invasion. Telling the story of "Operation Mincemeat," this thrilling novel builds to a gloriously tense encounter between two women from vastly different backgrounds united by a common purpose—to topple the Nazi regime. (BH)