Ormerod's Landing

by Leslie Thomas

Historians of the Second World War have hitherto omitted to mention that the first British raid on German-occupied France took place within four months of Dunkirk. It happened at midnight on September 21st, 1940, the landing being made at the small fishing town of Granville, in Normandy. The landing party consisted of a detective-sergeant of the Metropolitan Police (V Division), a young French woman schoolteacher and an ugly mongrel dog named Formidable. They were considerately brought ashore by the Germans themselves.George Ormerod was the detective sergeant in question, not the most imaginative of policemen, but, true to his name, most resolute in his investigations. (An ormer is a notably tenacious shell-fish of the English Channel.) While the war is being lost all around him, Ormerod remains obsessed with the mundane murder of a young woman in Wandsworth, even pursuing his investigations amongst the returning and bewildered troops.How the investigation blazed a savage trail through rural Normandy and led to Nazi-occupied Paris, and how Marie- Thérèse Velin and her often ruthless Resistance allies become involved with George Ormerod are questions Leslie Thomas answers as his tale unfolds. In Ormerod's Landing, an exciting and ironic tale of Britain and France in the early years of the war, he once again creates a tender, farcical world in which his unique humour and irony flourish.

Genres: Fiction, Literature

281 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 15, 1979

About the author

Born in Newport, Monmouthshire, 1931, Leslie Thomas is the son of a sailor who was lost at sea in 1943. His boyhood in an orphanage is evoked in This Time Next Week, published in 1964. At sixteen, he became a reporter, before going on to do his national service. He won worldwide acclaim with his bestselling novel The Virgin Soldiers, which has achieved international sales of over four million copies.

Reviews

[pete flowerdew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable book

I think a good book is one wherein you return to as part of an alternative life which you escape to.
In this book one is able to return to " normal life" with an occasioned thought for progress of the inhabitants, but with anticipation of enjoyment for one's next foray into the beginnings of the FRench resistance movements.
Then enjoy another hour or two of Ormerods adventures, getting involved in his affairs, falling for Marie Therese,admiring her professionalism, feeling as Ormerod does that she is exceptional person, yet so dedicated to her cause as to appear bloodthirsty.

[Anthony · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very slow to start and compared to his other books I've read to date, this book seemed to skip periods of time which perhaps could have been explored more It was quite descriptive but somehow didn't seem as if he couldn't wait to finish it.
I do read all the books I start right through to the end just to be sure that they are not late starters as many books seem to be these days.

[J V Woods · Rating 1 out of 5]

One star too many!

This was awful. I would give it no staea if it was possible. No real insight to the resistance. And what was the London copper doing there anyway. He had no idea why he was there and certainly not the reader. Really was a load of rubbish.

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rating 3

[John]

As

[Janet Bird · Rating 3 out of 5]

Excellent.

[Izzy Marsden · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite liked it. Haven't read any of LT's books before - think they're mostly war stories. Not my usual type of reading, but it was ok. Liked the main male character's tenacity to find the criminal alongside working with the resistance.

[Clive Warner · Rating 2 out of 5]

Follow up from The Virgin Soldiers, I imagine. Readable if you find it in the bookshelf on a rainy day in some B&B