The Adventures of the Stainless Steel Rat(1977)

Harry Harrison

Contains the 1st 3 Stainless Steel Rat books:
The Stainless Steel Rat (1961): DiGriz is caught during one of his crimes & recruited into the Special Corps. Boring, routine desk work during his probationary period results in his discovering that someone is building a battleship, thinly disguised as an industrial vessel. In the peaceful League no one has battleships any more, so the builder of this one would be unstoppable. DiGriz' hunt for the guilty becomes a personal battle between himself & the beautiful but deadly Angelina, who is planning a coup on one of the feudal worlds. DiGriz' dilemma is whether he will turn Angelina over to the Special Corps, or join with her, since he's fallen in love with her.
The Stainless Steel Rat's Revenge (1970): DiGriz & Angelina are happily married, expecting the birth of sons. The planet Cliaand is waging interstellar war. Against the odds, its Grey Men are invading & taking over planet after planet. The Rat is sent to Cliaand to start a one-man guerrilla campaign to put a stop to the plans of the planet's leader, Kraj. He is aided by the Amazons, a force of liberated freedom fighters, & eventually by his wife who arrives to help him win the war & keep him out of the arms of the Amazons.
The Stainless Steel Rat Saves the World (1972): The villainous He has travelled back in time to humankind's distant past on the legendary planet Earth ('Dirt') of '84, where he's altering events so that people who opposed him in the Rat's present cease to exist, Angelina amongst them. Using the Helix, a time-travel device invented by the Special Corps' Prof. Coypu, diGriz travels to '84 America, then to Napoleonic France where tanks & aircraft are helping bring about Napoleon's victory.