What would have happened if Britain had lost the air battle with Germany in the early part of WWII? An invasion would have been a certainty and, with America still hesitant to join Britain, the Allies would have had to rely on secret facilities outside mainland Britain and fight a war of subversion and wrecking tactics.

Churchill looked West, not to Washington DC, but to Canada, and a top secret facility that was producing some of the world’s greatest special forces and secret agents - Camp X.

Lynn Philip Hodgson and Alan Paul Longfield have produced an unnerving book which draws from 50 years of experience and tells the story of just what might have happened had things gone wrong for Britain and the rest of Europe.

The book is full with anecdotal gems; for example, just where would Britain have moved its gold reserves faced with a Nazi onslaught? Packed with real-life encounters about many of the men who trained at Camp X; what their roles might have been if Britain was overrun, and more importantly, how could they survive in a war zone with few friendly faces.

Hugely entertaining and at times reading like a Le Carre novel, the authors have themselves used the word “faction” to describe some of its contents, this book is as valuable a research tool as it is an historical work.