Annoyance

A subject all the more exciting as the SOE is little known in France. A book rather well written, with beautiful passages but also often irritating repetitions, even if they are deliberate. In some cases, moreover, there is doubt (example 201 p. "He had decided not to eat overnight to be sure not to eat anything that his son wanted to eat too." It looks bad translation!)
On the merits, in effect you learn a lot about training and how to work the SOE agents. BUT ... when you open a novel, we would not have to swallow 175 pages, wondering if some kind of scenario will start to emerge. Learn all about the training of future officers is very interesting, but it is not a novel, even with a multitude of characters (perhaps too much). It would quon can at the same time sattacher characters and vibrate with them ...
After this long preamble, we see for a few more chapters these young returned missionary and leave on a mission, but we are still waiting for the story begins. And when a plot finally emerges, this is almost too late, and there is too much for psychological improbabilities that is carried away. The relationship of the son with his father seem almost forced, like sil had to find at any price an original resiliency. And this band of young people who meet up regularly between missions ... How can we imagine that's possible, so we taught them throughout their training they had to prepare for solitude, that any personal connection with other agents was avoided for obvious safety reasons?
Finally, I closed the book with the same feeling after reading "The truth about Harry Quebert case" (the same author): this is a novel that could have been excellent and that leaves terribly hungry.
If we look at SOE, better read a real and exciting full document: "The English in the Resistance: The British secret service action (SOE) in France, 1940-1944" (Mr. Foot) or, for exciting intrigues (and documented): "You will not kill the spring (B. Nicodemus)" or "The girl falling from the sky" (S. Mawer).