Roger Brook


Roger Brook is a fictional secret agent and Napoleonic Wars Era gallant, later identified as the Chevalier de Breuc, in a series of twelve novels by Dennis Wheatley. The series, which covers events from a dozen years before the French Revolution to the fall of Napoleon, is historically accurate, written from the perspective of an aide-de-camp to Napoleon himself.
The Roger Brook books were written as a consequence of Wheatley being a member of Churchill's Joint Planning Staff during WW2. During this period, he had accumulated a lot of distinctive knowledge about matters relevant to the war and politics. But he was not allowed to use this knowledge in his novels because of the Official Secrets Act. After having discussed it with Air Commodore Kenneth Collier, the latter came up with a suggestion about placing Wheatley's stories in the Napoleonic times instead. So the writer combined his habit of doing extensive research, in this case to gather accurate historical details about the Napoleonic era, with his wartime knowledge and experience. After completing the final book in the series, Desperate Measures, Wheatley decided to retire from writing fiction.
The twelve books, with the dates when first published, and the period covered by the plot of each book, are as follows: