This dictionary by the author of The Secret Army is not just authoritative but filled with digressions, essays, small biographies, pithy asides and comments: should be useful as a work of reference and those who want to know who was who, who may still be who and what happened when. The entries are crisp, easy to find, easy to read and succinct. Here is the secret army revealed - in alphabetical order - and all the troubles compressed into terse definitions and reliable elaborations: small stories and concise studies.