Excerpt from Too Bad to Die by Francine Mathews, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"C-c-could learn heaps from a single Enigma r-r-rotor," he'd said when Ian climbed up the treacherous ladder and introduced himself. "Or a c-c-codeb-b-book. German bits left b-b-b-behind when there's a raid."

What he was saying, Ian figured out, was that they needed the right sort of men on the ground after an enemy rout. The sort who knew how to spot treasure among the wreckage of German Signals equipment or torpedoed ships, and pocket it for analysis at Bletchley. It would save Turing time. But nobody was actually looking for such things in the heat of battle; anything haphazardly salvaged appeared in Hut 8 like a bit of the True Cross.

The Prof's words had lingered in Ian's mind. Like everybody in Naval Intelligence, he tried to do whatever Alan Turing asked. On the train back to London, Ian scribbled down a few words: Special unit. Targeted collection. Intelligence support. Rushbrooke's predecessor at Naval Intelligence, Sir John Godfrey, was enthusiastic about the idea.

"It must be a small group of fellows," he warned. "Thoroughly trained in survival techniques. Nontraditional warfare. Commandos, we'll call them. Churchill will like that name."

Co-Co-Co-Commandos.

"I want to volunteer, sir," Ian had said, with the first real pulse of excitement he'd felt since the beginning of his war.

But no, Godfrey replied with a regretful shake of the head. Ian was too valuable. Too creative in the deception operations he'd unleashed against the Germans over the years. He knew far too much about the inner workings of Naval Intelligence. They could not risk his capture in the field.

A year later, Rushbrooke said the same.

And so it was Peter Fleming who'd volunteered for Commando training in the wilds of Scotland instead . . .

The closest Ian came to action was the deck of a landing boat off Dieppe, when his Red Indians, as the intelligence commandos were called, had gone in on a raid. Ian's heroics that night were limited to comforting an eighteen-year-old kid under fire for the first time. He might look like a hero—tall, broad-shouldered, Byronically handsome, with a broken nose women swooned over—but he was denied all opportunity to prove himself. Ian was a planner. The brains of every operation.

And his desk job was driving him mad.

He'd taken to writing down the wild ideas in his head, lately—improbable contests with a sinister enemy—just to vent his frustration. It was King Solomon's Mines all over again. Cracking good stories, none of them real.

What would Mokie think of him now?

He pocketed the lighter and dusted ash from his fingertips. The Fencer's in town . . .

He needed more information than Turing would give in a one-line telegram. And, unfortunately, that meant grappling with Grace. She'd assume he'd invented a reason to see her, when in fact he wanted nothing less. But it couldn't be helped.

He stepped off the terrace and made for one of the sanded paths that led directly from the hotel to the Prime Minister's villa.

—

"NO EVENING GOWN FOR GRACIE?"

"Ian!" She glanced over her shoulder, a distracted look in her gray eyes, and snatched irritably at the earphones she was wearing. They'd muffled the sound of his approach to the Signals Room, and Grace would resent the fact. A security breach, she'd say. In the future he should expect a cordon of alarms to herald his approach, if not a locked door.

It could be a metaphor, Ian thought, for his entire history with Grace Cowles.

She was an expert Signals operator, a composed and efficient twenty-six-year-old from Lambeth who was cannier than her education and more vital to the British war effort than most people knew. Grace served as General Lord Ismay's right arm—and Ismay was chief of Churchill's military staff. Since Ian coordinated intelligence and Grace disseminated it all over the British field, they'd been thrown together for years. Ismay could not function without her.

Excerpted from Too Bad to Die by Francine Mathews. Copyright © 2015 by Francine Mathews. Excerpted by permission of Riverhead Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.