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Books

Patrick Leigh Fermor and the long, daft tradition of Brits trying to save Greece

A review of The Ariadne Objective, by Wes Davis. Leigh Fermor's adventures in Crete make for a romantic story – but that doesn't mean he's remembered fondly there

31 May 2014

9:00 AM

31 May 2014

9:00 AM

The Ariadne Objective: Patrick Leigh Fermor and the Underground War to Rescue Crete from the Nazis Wes Davis

Bantam, pp.329, £20, ISBN: 9780593072806

Twenty-odd years ago, while on holiday in the deep Mani at the foot of the Peloponnese, I got into conversation with an old and only partially reconstructed Greek communist shop-owner. I had been showing him a bit of pottery I had found on the sea bed at Asomati, and he wanted to know what had brought me to the Mani in the first place and was it Patrick Leigh Fermor? I said no — not strictly true — and he seemed pleased. 

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