Cairo 1942. Colonel Clarke thought of himself as developing a new kind of weapon. Its components? Rumour stagecraft a sense of fun. Its target? The mind of Erwin Rommel Hitler's greatest general. Throughout history military commanders have sought to mislead their opponents. Dudley Clarke set out to do it on a scale no one had imagined before. Even afterwards almost no one understood the magnitude of his achievement. Drawing on recently released documents journalist and historian Robert Hutton reveals the amazing story of Clarke's A Force the invention of the SAS and the Commandos and the masterful hoodwinking of the Desert Fox at the battle of El Alamein. The Illusionist tells for the first time the tale of how at a pivotal moment in the war British eccentricity and imagination combined to thwart the Nazis and save innumerable lives - on both sides.
