Believable Lies

The Misfits Who Fought Churchill's Secret Propaganda War

By: Terry Stiastny

Narrated by: Anna Wilson-Jones

Brought to you by Penguin.

Meet the misfits and mavericks who waged psychological warfare against the Nazis.

September, 1939. While Britain hovered on the brink of the Second World War, a team of unlikely and ill-assorted characters assembled in their secret headquarters. They had left their civilian roles as politicians, journalists, novelists and spies, advertisers, artists and even forgers, to work for a covert government organisation. Their goals: to weaken enemy morale, sow confusion and encourage resistance. In the ‘hush-hush’ village of Aspley Guise near Woburn Abbey (8 miles from the codebreakers at Bletchley Park), they set to work.

The once top-secret wartime efforts of the Political Warfare Executive were remarkable in their variety and inventiveness – from pornographic leaflet drops to rumour campaigns, underground publications and fake French and German radio shows. But to break Nazi morale, these men and women found themselves skirting the edges of their own morality. What do you lose when you deploy lies – even brilliant, believable lies – to achieve your ends?

© Terry Stiastny 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

Critic reviews

A fascinating story of truth and deceit. The Allied effort to shift the balance of the war through propaganda is here revealed as a tale of eccentricity, bitter rivalries and moments of pure genius (Robert Hutton, author of THE ILLUSIONIST and AGENT JACK)