Cover

Praise

“Walters throws in a few twists to produce a readable novel of Buchan-lite thrills.”

—Sunday Herald

“This brilliantly plotted novel is well researched, and impossible to put down…the characters develop with their choices and circumstances. Guy Walters wanted to write a thriller about the British Free Corps because few people seemed to have heard of the unit…. The result is World War II from a fresh perspective.”

—Claire Morris Bernard, The Historical Novels Review

“A clever tale that twists history upside down…nonstop action all the way and a thoroughly good read.”

—Swindon Evening Advertiser

“This has everything you’d want in an historical novel…it’s hand-stuck-to-the-pages stuff.”

—Front Magazine

Colophon

Title Page

Copyright

TOUCHSTONE
Rockefeller Center
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

First Touchstone Edition 2005
Originally published in Great Britain in 2002
by Headline Book Publishing, a division of Hodder Headline

Excerpt from Autumn Journal by Louis MacNeice, published by Faber & Faber, is reproduced by kind permission of David Higham Associates.
Excerpt from Erotocritas, translated by Theodore Ph. Stefanides, is reproduced by kind permission of Papazissis Publishers S.A.

TOUCHSTONE and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Designed by Jan Pisciotta

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Walters, Guy.
The traitor : a novel / Guy Walters.—1st Touchstone ed.
p.  cm.
“A Touchstone Book.”
1. World War, 1939–1945—Prisoners and prisons, German—Fiction. 2. World War, 1939–1945—Great Britain—Fiction. 3. Waffen-SS. Britisches Freikorps—Fiction. 4. World War, 1939–1945—Germany—Fiction. 5. British—Germany—Fiction. 6. Soldiers—Fiction. I. Title.
PR6123.A47T73 2005
813’.6—dc22  2004062602

ISBN-13: 978-0-7432-7459-3
ISBN-10: 0-7432-7459-8

Dedication

This book is for
ANNABEL

Acknowledgments

For historical advice and guidance, I must thank Adrian Weale. He has taken my appropriation—and subsequent subversion—of the subject in very good spirit, and I am very grateful.

For medical matters, I turned to Dr. Peter Kyle, and his daughter, Vanessa Andreae. They were both exceedingly helpful and allowed their brains to be picked without the slightest complaint.

His son-in-law, Tobyn Andreae, was immeasurably helpful in matters of plot. He knows how thankful I hope to be.

I could not have had a finer and more rigorous editor than Marion Donaldson. She must take enormous credit for any enjoyment the reader may gain over these few hundred pages. I would recommend her to any author.

My agent, Tif Loehnis at Janklow & Nesbit, is a wonder. She has exhibited enormous faith and kindness, and has set me on a path that I hope to be very long. She is worth every percentage point.

My parents, Martin and Angela Walters, my brother, Dominic, and my parents-in-law, Richard and Venetia Venning, have given me so much of the confidence and support needed to carry out such a venture. I can never fully repay them.