John Lodwick

The Special Boat Service was a small force during World War II, never more than about 300 men. But that did not stop it from inflicting great damage on the enemy. In the Mediterranean arena and in the Aegean, which the Germans controlled after the fall of Greece and Crete, this small commando force kept up a constant campaign of harassment, thus pinning down enemy forces and preventing their joining other fronts. They travelled by night to their targets, using submarines, small surface vessels or canoes, with the commanders of the vessels often putting themselves in danger in order to help the men carry out their dangerous and secret missions. They were reliant on the co-operation of the fiercely independent Greeks and in particular the Cretans, all working together in their common objective against the German invaders. John Lodwick took part in the SBS Mediterranean campaign and writes from personal experience with the panache and verve of the squadron itself. For it is more than the story of the remarkable men who made up the force: men such as Anders Lassen, 'the Dreadful Dane' who was awarded a posthumous VC, Fitzroy Maclean, Eric Newby, Jock Lapraik, and Lord Jellicoe, who commanded the squadron for almost two years and who contributed a memorable foreword to this memoir. Strong, determined individuals, together the men of the Special Boat Service formed a deadly, cohesive fighting force which contributed much to the war in the Mediterranean and to whom John Lodwick's book is an excitingly readable tribute.

""Brother Death" is perhaps John Lodwick's most original and ambitious thriller, combining the moral questioning of Graham Greene with the edge-of-your-seat suspense of Geoffrey Household or Hitchcock." - Michael Moorcock "Mr. Lodwick writes with great accomplishment, softening his brutalities with a sardonic humour." - Lionel Hale, "Observer" "Mr. Lodwick is a clever writer who goes all out to be tough. It should gratify him to hear that this reviewer thinks "Brother Death" a perfectly horrid book, for he can hardly have meant it to be anything else.... there is no denying that Mr. Lodwick's style is admirable, that he can make a point with the minimum of words and can be very good company." - "Guardian" " O]ne of the wittiest and most original talents of his generation." - Peter Green, "Telegraph" "Mr. Lodwick is one of the few true craftsmen writing in English." - "The Observer" "John Lodwick has a richness of invention and a command of words equal to Evelyn Waugh." - "Daily Herald" Eric Rumbold is a mercenary adventurer, adrift in the back streets of Marseilles, where he makes a precarious living as a counterfeiter and black marketeer. Totally lacking either principles or moral scruples, Rumbold had been a top spy, saboteur, and killer for the British during the war but finds his talents of little use in peacetime. When the alluring Fiona Lampeter meets Rumbold, she knows she's found the man she's been looking for. Her young son stands in the way of her inheriting the family fortune: she wants the boy dead and is willing to make the job well worth Rumbold's while. Drawn into the Lampeter family's web of intrigue and deceit, Rumbold lays the plans for the horrific and cold-blooded murder of an innocent child ... and in the novel's unforgettable climax, at least one of them will make the acquaintance of Brother Death. One of the best selling authors of his day, John Lodwick's novels were characterized by their fast pace, sardonic humour, and brilliant prose. Admired by Somerset Maugham, John Betjeman, and Anthony Burgess, and often compared with Graham Greene and Evelyn Waugh, Lodwick fell into obscurity after his death in a car crash in 1959 at age 43. This edition of "Brother Death" (1948) is the first republication of any of his works since his death and includes a new introduction by Chris Petit.