“It is a story of why men go to war, it is also a heart-wrenching love story; a wonderful novel by a masterly writer that should be on everyone's bookshelf—and not borrowed but bought.”

– Nina Bawden

“A supremely moving and well-wrought tale . . . A perceptive and fondly comic study of an orphaned aristocrat named Willie Maryngton . . . like Bertie Wooster cast in a tragic role . . . And it is this hopeless, supererogatory soul who, in a freakish turn of events, becomes central to the secretive military mission known here as Operation Heartbreak . . . As unexpected as it is affecting.”

– Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal

"[A] little masterpiece."

– Compton Mackenzie

“Willie’s rigid adherence to the old order marks him as either heroic or foolish in the manner of Stevens, the head butler in Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day . . . The novel’s understated tone charms. Cooper’s portrait of the interwar years is an appealing literary curiosity.”

– Publishers Weekly

“A first novel of great distinction . . . a study in frustration of an unusual kind . . . a daring combination of irony and pathos . . . a delightful tragi-comedy of military manners. It has been constructed by Duff Cooper with a truly dramatic economy and told with humour, deep feeling and considerable skill.”

– Patrick Gibbs, Daily Telegraph

“A rare book, written with wonderful economy and perfect timing.”

– Manchester Guardian

“As creditable, as surprising, as abundantly and elegantly good, as anything else Duff Cooper turned his mind and hand to . . . It is perhaps a little astonishing that a man so blessed with talent and facility should have been granted such insight into the predicament of his tongue-tied and monoglot and club-bound countrymen.”

– Michael Hofmann, from the Afterword