Penguin Modern Classics: The Levant Trilogy

'The Danger Tree', 'The Battle Lost & Won', 'The Sum Of Things'.

Leaving behind Hitler's Europe, Guy and Harriet Pringle find refuge in Cairo, a city tense with fear and expectation. Also newly arrived is Simon Boulderstone, an inexperienced young officer who falls in love with Harriet's fun-loving friend Edwina. While the Pringles struggle for survival in the city he becomes involved in the bitter fighting in the desert.

For each of them there is disillusionment and isolation as they battle with their own unresolved problems heightened by the uncertainties of war. Olivia Manning's evocative work brilliantly captures the mood of the Near and Middle East in wartime and the sense of irrevocable change.