In the novel, like in real life, Steel/Lewes and Madeleine/ Mirren met for the first time at Jock’s sister Elizabeth’s wedding in Oxford.

His invention of the Lewes sticky bomb - an explosive device shaped like a tennis ball - also went on to destroy hundreds of Luftwaffe aircraft, accounting for more German planes than those shot down by the RAF in North Africa. The revelations feature in a BBC documentary airing tonight which is based on Ben Macintyre's book, Rogue Heroes. John Steel Lewes (1913-41) was born in Calcutta (now Kolkata) to an English father and an Australian mother.

Created during the Second World War, the SAS operated behind enemy lines in North Africa and Europe. One is left in little doubt, both from reading elsewhere and from this book, that Lewes was a highly gifted operator—and that is where the focus of this book should have been. But in 1941, at the age of 28, Lewes was fatally hit by a 20mm cannon round fired by a Messerschmitt fighter while travelling in a truck shortly. Known as Jock, he was the son of Arthur Harold and Elsie Steel Lewes of Hanworth, Middlesex who married in Steyning, Sussex in 1911. This nearly had disastrous consequences, when John severely injured his hand during one of their bomb-making experiments.

The main objective was to conduct raids against the lines of communication of Axis forces in the Western Desert. This gave the Dark Blues a push and they continued to pull away, crossing the finish line first, three lengths ahead of their opponents.Both Wikipedia and SAS’s official site has it that Lewes was President of OUBC that year, but he was not. Before taking on his mission, Jock went down to the beach for a swim, where he reminisced about his love interest. I do however see this book appealing to the dedicated SAS and military enthusiast who wishes to have the life of this brave young officer on their shelves. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Conversely, I think that far too little is made of the military operations that Lewes was involved in.