C.S. Forester is better known for his Horatio Hornblower novels but this World War II novella is well worth a read. Sticking to the events around the hunt for the German battleship Bismarck, Forester tells a gripping story, interpolating invented dialogue – we obviously have no record of what was actually said on the command deck of the Bismarck – with a masterful narrative account of the events.

The main flaw is one that Forester could not have remedied when writing the book: we now know that British intelligence had cracked the German Enigma code but when Forester wrote his book this was still top secret. I would like to read an account of the hunt for the Bismarck that includes this so we can learn how much difference this knowledge made.