I don't imagine that this was an easy book to write.

First of all I will state that I am a great fan of Dudley Pope's Ramage series. I am half way through that series and loved each one... I have a real interest in the Napoleonic wars - land or sea warfare.

In this book, the writing is just as good as the Ramage series. Pope's problem would be to make the capture of an Enigma cypher machine from the WWII Germans interesting for 323 pages. Besides the main thread of the story, Pope paints a pretty good portrait of London during the German bombings... he often goes on tangents by describing deficiencies in protection of sailors in the RN and merchant marine....poor lifeboats and inferior life jackets among other things.

He does this especially in a long sequence when the lifeboat full of commandos is rowing in the Atlantic as a decoy hoping to attract a German U-boat. It is a boring job but Pope offsets this with these tangents.

To me the capture of the U-Boat is quite an anti-climax. Now they have to bring home the prize without getting destroyed by friend or foe since they have lost the ability to communicate their success.

There is a generous use of humour, especially in the first 100 pages. It is in the form usually as scarcasm between major characters. It got to be a bit annoying to me but it dies out a bit as the novel wore on.

Why this is not part of the YORKE series is beyond me as the main character is Ned Yorke.

Overall I did like the book despite the long relatively boring parts

I will read ALL of the Pope books I find... overall I like his writing ( )