Greenhill, 2001, £ 19.95, ISBN 1-85367-445-1, 320 pages

The prose, like the title, gets a little long. Get past that and you'll find yourself enamored of the research and obvious attention to detail.

Rolf starts with Operation Torch and carries the Allied attack to the final surrender of Axis forces some six months later. In between, you'll discover a wealth of command infighting on both sides, clumsy attacks and devastating counterstrokes, and bitter fighting among the hills and valleys of Tunisia. Rolf meticulously plots "the big picture" facing Eisenhower while punctuating operations with individual anecdotes.

A few attributes of this mid-war fighting smack you in the face:

• Minefields proved effective in delaying attacks or pursuits, but not enough to actually stop a concerted drive. It seems attacking sappers could clear them almost as fast as defenders could sow them.

• Weather plays hell with plans. If you think the desert of North Africa is all sand dunes and oases, think again. Winter rains can really glom up an attack.

• The Germans, who really should have known better by this time, split their command structure in two. When Rommel was at El Alamein, that made sense due to distance. But when he's fighting in Kasserine Pass, it doesn't. If you think Allied infighting between Brits and Yanks was bad, read the parts between Rommel and von Arnim!

A dozen maps are included, and they're fairly good, but I have a quibble: quite often the text refers to specific valleys, but the maps neglect to label them. You can, to an extent, figure out where they are based on towns and hills, but I ended up on more than one occasion wishing for a precise location because of a point made in the text. I understand that maps are an extra expense, but history buffs really like cartography and when Rolf involves me so much in the text that I go poking for the map, well, I expect it to be there on the map.

Picky? Yes. Are the existing maps good? Yes, and I want to give a thumbs up for including more than one generic Tunisia map common in other books. I would forgo the 34 black and white photos in favor of better maps. Although I would point out there are a couple neat photos: Tiger tank turret ripped apart by an AT round, German P.O.W. reaching across the wire for a drink, and a New Zealand artillery unit using captured German 88mm guns! The rest are mostly personnel head and shoulders photos.

All in all, The Bloody Road to Tunis is a fine bit of research. If the prose is not all that scintillating, it's because it packs in so much information. It's a worthy addition to your bookshelf.