This book is a really fun read. It's all a bit mysterious, but it tells a classic tale of the British upper class at war. It's kind of a cross between "Lawrence of Arabia" and "Guns of Navarone", but with a lot less violence. Exactly what organization the author works for, and what context it all takes place in is lacking. But the chase across Crete and the author's insights into the locals kept me glued to my chair reading until I had read from front to back. See also the 1957 movie of the same name with Dirk Bogarde. For another book in the same vein find a copy of F.S. Chapman's "The Jungle is Neutral". Another WW2 "way behind the lines" story, this time in Malaya.

In 1944, two British commandos capture a Nazi General from the island of Crete, and take him to British-occupied Egypt.

Written by one of the commandos, it's a suspenseful true wartime tale.

Stanley Moss must have been an interesting man. He obviously was an erudite individual, in that he was able to write this marvelous book, in spite of not being an author or anything like that. He was instead a soldier, a wartime one who had an office job before the war, but left to try and kill Germans, and win the war for the Allies. This book covers his account of his attempt (with one other British officer and a band of local partisans) to capture the commander of a German division in Crete, and spirit him back to Egypt via torpedo boat.

The book is very British. There's a marvelous sense of the British civilian upper class at war, bunglingly incompetent but amazingly brave, and very good-hearted. The bungling is strange in that the author clearly was an effective soldier (an afterward by Moss's partner, Leigh-Fermor, in my addition tells how Moss led a partisan detachment that killed 75 or so Germans several months after the events in the book) but he manages to convey that he's not very good at this war stuff. In one scene, he lets one of the Partisans examine his submachinegun ,and is then nervous because "I never know which buttons on these things to push" and sweats until the gun is given back to him. There's marvelous banter, slang, and nicknames (one of the Cretan partisans is called "Wallace Beery" because of his supposed resemblance to that actor) and even the torpedo boat captain is colorful, as he should be.

I was impressed with this book. The plot moves right along, doesn't get bogged down with too many details, doesn't try to portray what was done in a particularly brave or skilful way, just tells you the results, I would recommend it highly.