{"product_id":"9781916556744-moon-in-splinters","title":"The Moon in Splinters","description":"\u003cmeta content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\" http-equiv=\"Content-Type\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eSearching for Maurice Pertschuk, British Secret agent in the French Resistance\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn 1942, SOE officer Maurice Pertschuk landed in France to aid the Resistance. By 1945, he was hanged at Buchenwald, days before its liberation. In \u003cem\u003eThe Moon in Splinters\u003c\/em\u003e, his niece uncovers his lost story—of poetry, courage, betrayal, and a secret Resistance network—revealing a darker ending than history recalls.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eOne moonless night in 1942, a handsome 20-year-old British SOE lieutenant, Maurice Pertschuk, rowed ashore on the Côte d’Azur with orders to report to the French resistance. Three years later he’d be hanged at Buchenwald, just 13 days before its liberation, within earshot of approaching Allied guns. Friends rescued the sheaf of poems he’d scribbled on scavenged paper and published them in 1946 as “\u003cem\u003eLeaves of Buchenwald\u003c\/em\u003e.” \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat had happened, his young niece wondered, to this young poet? A seemingly impenetrable silence hung around the subject. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOnly after her mother’s death did this niece dare look for answers. In \u003cem\u003eThe Moon in Splinters\u003c\/em\u003e she revisits Maurice’s haunts, tracks down survivors and interviews their families. A portrait emerges of a slight, brilliant, romantic intellectual; of gentle disposition, yet tough, full of “imaginative audacity,” who organized a vast, yet to date largely forgotten, resistance network in southern France. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAfter the Germans occupied the whole of France, London ordered his team to blow up a Toulouse explosive factory, but a double agent caught wind of the plot. Maurice and 16 others were betrayed, arrested, tortured and deported to Buchenwald. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Moon in Splinters\u003c\/em\u003e follows twists and turns in the discoveries, the disappointments and the revelations - all interwoven with Maurice’s reconstructed story. It leads to a surprise ending, even more sinister than the one historians tell.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Rarewaves","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56116251361654,"sku":"9781916556744","price":23.08,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0092\/7504\/8033\/files\/orig_35846214_8c09528b-410e-4732-b072-51618356d487.jpg?v=1756338924","url":"https:\/\/www.rarewaves.com\/products\/9781916556744-moon-in-splinters","provider":"Rarewaves.com","version":"1.0","type":"link"}