Varsity

Germany, March 1945. Lieutenant Sean Harris and his veteran paratroopers take part in Operation Varsity, the major Allied airborne assault supporting the crossing of the Rhine. When the fictional group’s mission collapses and several men are captured, Harris, Harry McGuinness and Len Dunleavy must escape through enemy territory while German forces attempt to contain the Allied breakthrough.

Operation Varsity and the Rhine crossing provide the documented military setting, but Harris and his companions remain invented characters whose capture and escape form the novel’s thriller plot. As they move west through a disintegrating Third Reich, the fifth Manner of Men novel shifts from the immediate airborne assault to the wider violence and instability of Germany in the final weeks of the European war.