This book starts with something of a bum steer. The cover declares that Survival in Singapore is about the ‘triumph and tragedy of Australia’s greatest commando operation’. It turns out that the commando operation is not its main subject at all, as Tom Trumble acknowledges in his note to readers, but the hook for a tale of sacrifice and suffering in Japanese-occupied Singapore during World War II. This faint misdirection did not trouble me – the subject of wartime Singapore interests me more than a tale of derring-do – but it did surprise. Is this part of marketing a popular war history – always go with the more dramatic angle?