The activities of the underworld, operating in the armed forces as well as the civilian black market, are one of the great untold stories of World War II. While the war produced many acts of self-sacrifice, it also made people rich. One Liverpool ship repairer, for instance, cheated the government in a single year of what today would be u20 million. Donald Thomas draws on extensive archives to tell the extraordinary and frequently ludicrous story of these less heroic Britons."