This is a trilogy: Men at Arms; Officers and Gentlemen; and Unconditional Surrender. Released in stages; it somewhat parallels the author's World War II experiences.
Enthusiastic reviews everywhere; yet (or perhaps because of this) initially I was a bit disappointed because I think I was expecting stirring descriptions of military actions. It isn't that at all, but certainly that doesn't weaken the book.
Mostly it's about England and WWII and all the stuff that went on as folks tried to figure out how to approach an impossibly complex situation.
Protagonist is Guy Crouchback - a Catholic from a declining Brit aristocratic family; he lived on a family villa in Italy for quite a while after a failed marriage - so a bit of an outside observer of Britain though entirely a part of it. He's observing 1930s events in Europe and decides to try to enter the military even though he's pretty old.
Stories of training and the characters he meets. We get to know his family, and his ex-wife (who gets to know Trimmer). Finally sent to Africa with his unit - participates in a minor battle in Dakar - he gets in some trouble there (bottle of whiskey to Apthorpe) but also gets under the patronage of a one-eyed old-timey general.
Spends time in Crete - this is the closest to military action. Then time in Yugoslavia - sorting out the difficulties there - trying to help individuals (his father's advice) but it tends to backfire in the mess there.
Muddles abound. But I think that's pretty accurate in a war of this scale.
In the end, I liked this book a great deal.
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