A decent book that gets quite a bit better by the middle. Fans of war lit would find it an easy stroll. ( )

This is the story of 30 Commando, who during WW2 collected all sorts of naval intelligence initial by running pinch raids against boats and ships.

It was formed with the support of Flemming, assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence. The first raids and operations were disastrous, many Canadians died in one operation in Dieppe, but as the training improved, the material and information that they collected got better. AT the end of the war they were collecting tons of documents as the allies swept across Europe.

Flemming was intimately linked with 30 Commando, picking targets and working with other intelligence organisations to make the most of the data collected. Rankin links the things that he did during the war with the people, themes and equipment that he uses in the Bond books.

A lot of the book is fascinating, I was not aware just how close we were to failure on some of these raids. That said, the book is disjointed, and at certain points confusing with lots of people being written about. It could have benefited with a stronger narrative. ( )