‘The man who stumbled on HELL: His place in history has never been revealed. His memoir recounts how he uncovered the horrors of Belsen’

It is all here – and all told with the same verve, eye for anecdote and command of the material. This is a very good book, and a model of how narrative history should be written... anybody remotely interested in the battle should read

Invigorating and compelling

I was gripped by the wealth of detail and humanity in the book... This is how the tales of battles should be told, whatever the time, place or outcome

A grim story – but well worth the telling

What is truly gripping is the human horror, and the realization that what counts in war is not glory or patriotism, but victory, supremacy and the uncompromising need to prevail

Original and fascinating… If you buy one book to mark [the] anniversary [of Waterloo], buy this one

O’Keeffe describes these fraught, uncertain days with skill and a touch for ground-level detail... [He] has told in vivid colors a story that is often passed over in most narratives, but that is alive with drama and human tragedy

O’Keeffe has done a magnificent job tying up loose ends and telling a story that needed to be told

O’Keeffe brings an unjaundiced eye to what has been a well-told tale

Heart-breaking and breath-taking, and a vivid tribute both to all those who escaped from France into Spain as well as those who helped them. A thoroughly moving and very readable book.

Escaping the Nazis across the Pyrenean mountain trails became one of the most extraordinary acts of spontaneous resistance of World War Two. In Cruel Crossing, Ed Stourton straps on his backpack and takes to the escape lines himself, reflecting as he treks on the courage and self-sacrifice of the escapers and evaders who went before him - many of them young women, whose remarkable stories are told here often for the first time. Stourton has produced both a compelling history and a unique mountain guide, telling his story with his familiar humour and journalistic verve.

An important book packed with poignant stories, remarkable characters and uncomfortable truths.

Cruel Crossing is an accomplished account of an overlooked part of the Second World War. Using wide-ranging research and an impressive number of eye-witness accounts, Stourton tells the story of the escape lines across the Pyrenees, and of the wartime history of southwest France in all its muddied complexity. The gripping escape stories he narrates are sometimes harrowing, often moving, and above all, full of variety and surprises. There is suffering, extraordinary bravery, friendship and even humour; but there is also treachery, betrayal and villainy. A fitting memorial to how war brings out the best and worst in people.

Enthralling stories ... a moving retelling of some of the war's most heroic episodes

A vigorous book, full of energy as well as insight