The Next Moon: the remarkable true story of a British agent behind the lines in wartime France Andre Hue (with Ewen Southby-Tailyour) Viking, 320pp, £17.99 ISBN 0670914789

Written nearly 60 years after the events it describes, this latest memoir from the dwindling group of Second World War veterans tells the gripping story of a British secret agent operating in France during the final weeks of the German occupation.

Andre Hue was born of an English mother and a French father. Although brought up in England, he was serving in the French merchant navy at the start of the war. After his ship was mined and sunk, he went to live with his mother and half-brother in Brittany, determined to do anything he could to aid the French cause. His efforts at minor espionage and resistance work came to the attention of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) back in England, and he was whisked out of France to be trained as a secret agent.

On the night of 6 June 1944, as the invasion fleet set off for the Normandy landings, Hue was parachuted back into France to help the growing number of resistance fighters - or maquisards - gathering in the forests of Brittany. Aided by a battalion of Free French SAS, their task was to sabotage enemy lines of communication and distract as many German troops as possible, drawing them away from Normandy. As the only agent in the area, it was Hue's job to co-ordinate vital supply drops and organise about 20,000 maquisards into efficient fighting units - an awesome responsibility for someone aged only 20.

There cannot be many clearer or more detailed accounts of the operations of the French resistance, and Hue's death-defying adventures certainly make for riveting reading. But, unlike the best wartime memoirs, this one has been written in collaboration with a ghost-writer, and suffers as a result. The large sections of dialogue give it a novelistic and artificial feel, and there are too many exclamations of "Vive la France!" and "mon dieu!"

A more serious problem is that Hue is not prepared to bare his soul. We never get to know him as a person. If he was ever scared, he doesn't say so, and he never reveals what he thinks of his fellow combatants - the French SAS officers, the teenage maquisards, the farmers prepared to risk everything to help the fight against the occupier. Hue finally opens his heart when remembering Genevieve Pondard, a local woman with whom he had a brief affair, but he does not mention what attracted him to her in the first place.

During his first major engagement with the enemy - a sizeable battle against three German battalions - he watches dispassionately as a man next to him falls to the ground "with blood spurting two feet into the air". He does not betray much more emotion in describing women being raped and butchered, or in describing homes being destroyed.

No doubt his coolness and tough mentality are what made him such an effective agent, but the book reminded me more of Bravo Two Zero than any of the recent war memoirs. Instead, it is the lesser characters who stand out. Hue's account is testimony to the extraordinary bravery of so many ordinary Frenchmen and women in the final, bloody months of the German occupation.

James Holland's novel The Burning Blue has recently been published by Heinemann

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