Between Silk and Cyanide

Blurb

Between Silk and Cyanide: A Codemaker's War 1941-1945 is a book by former Special Operations Executive cryptographer Leo Marks, describing his work during the Second World War. It was published in 1998 by HarperCollins.
The title is derived from an incident related in the book, when Marks was asked why agents in occupied Europe should have their cryptographic material printed on silk. He summed his reply up by saying that it was "between silk and cyanide", meaning that it was a choice between the agent's surviving by making reliable coded radio transmissions with the help of the printed silk, and having to take a suicide pill. Unlike paper, which would be given away by rustling, silk would not be detected by a casual search if it was concealed in the lining of clothing.
While many of the incidents described in the book are humorous, a major theme is Marks' inability to convince his superiors that apparent mistakes made in radio transmissions from agents infiltrated into the Nazi-occupied Netherlands were prearranged duress codes.