• Peter Padfield 2013 "Hesse, Hitler, Churchill : The real turning point of the Second World War - A secret history"  www.IconBooks.net, London, 428pp, ISBN 978-1-84831-602-7 

This book has some gems in it for sure, and for that it was worth my while.  Padfield is extremely meticulous with data and sources, which is wonderful to have.  I'm not at all convinced that Hesse's flight to Engand was the turning point of WWII as Padfield suggests, although it is temporally close to one key turning point in "Icebreaker unchained", albeit thematically worlds apart.  Several important points "somewhat supported by the book" that I already was using a few years ago in "Icebreaker" :

• Hitler NEVER seriously intended to invade and conquer the Brits, in spite of many opportunities to do so.  I suspect that in rage and bad times that might have been his thinking, but he always knew his real enemy was Stalin.   Essentially none the world's leaders (and probably essentially none military leaders) could really understand either man.  Padfield's book points out that even Churchill completely failed at understanding that core theme (albeit not as naive and stupid as Roosevelt and other leaders), and to me Churchill is also partially responsible for much of the world's population falling under Communism and socialism (the latter in a fair chunk of Western and developing socialist nations).   However, many British Royals and businessmen, as well as quite a few Americans, did understand that point.  Quite possibly Churchill's focus on defeating Nazism rather than allying with them against Stalin was a BIG mistake.  I'm not proposing that as any kind of truth, just one of many "Multiple Conflicting Hypothesis" at least on a par with conventional Western historical analysis.
• At least by 04May1941, and possibly well before then, the Brits were getting detailed, high-level German plans from Enigma decifering.  Padfield's book is the earliest specific date I have, although the Hollywood film "The Imitation Game" does give the name of a sunken troop ship. However, how extensive the information I don't know, as it must have taken some time to construct 30,000 (?) or so enigma machines, and to build a huge war-information organisation around it.   Stalin had an agent on the small team of about five people even before Alan Turing even started with the Enigma project team!   Frankly, this is yet more HUGE support for my "Icebreaker" theme.  Three or four years ago, I didn't have much, now it's difficult to argue with the "Icebreaker" line of thinking.
  

• Bill O'Reilly, Martin Dugard 2014 "Killing Patton : The strange death of World War II's most audacious general", www.HenryHolt.com, New York, 352pp, ISBN 978-0-8050-9668-2 (hardcover)
  

While I've long suspected that Patton was assasinated by the Soviets, based on the Hollywood film with actor George C. Scott from a decade or two or three ago.  However, a follow-up film (I think also with George C Scott) made that assasination hypothesis far more likely.  Having read the O'Reilly & Dugard book, it's clear that there were probably four well identified (well camouflaged, so certainty cannot exist for any hypothesis) assasintation attempts, and possibly a huge number of other traps set.  I now consider the Hollywood films and many authors to have been extraordinalrily dishonest about this theme, intentionally supressing it and changing film scenes to minimise suspicions!!!

It really appears that the Soviets arranged many assassinations through high-level Americans in the military and politics (and separate plans with other nationalities), of which one plan of many worked.  The top suspect (to me) is none other than Bill Donovan - one of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's top advisors, even for the entry into the war, and until the last moment because of Roosevelt's death, designate to lead the new post-war CIA organisation!!  For example, page 274 :

"...    Donovan does little to stop the Russian influence within the OSS.  Since the summer of 1944, his security office has made it known to Donovan that forty-seven OSS agents are either Communists or Russian sympathisers.  Wild Bill also knows that Joseph Stalin has been planting Russian spies within the OSS since 1942.  

What Donovan does NOT know is the Duncan Lee, his executive secretary and the man who knows all his secrets, is a traitor.  Lee is working for the Russian spy agency NKVD, as a double agent.  Among invaluable nuggets of information Lee has provided the Soviets over the course of the war was advance warning of the D-day landing in date and the exact location of the atomic bomb research in Tennesee.  That the Russians would use such a prized asset, Lee, to gather information about George Patton speaks volumes about their eagerness to see him silenced.   ..."

Strangely, author Padfield does NOT suggest that Donovan has long been a Soviet double agent, in spite of a mountain of suspicious circumstances over a very long time, which I suspect would start well before the invasion of Poland.   Quoite frankly, at this point in time it is my strong suspicion tat Franklin Delano Roosevelt was not only a hero, but a HUGE traitor as well - and that applies to the Great Depression as well as WWII!!