The official life of the soldier and statesman killed by the IRA in 1979 paints a rounded, sympathetic, and yet undeceived portrait of Mountbatten's character. From his christening (attended by Queen Victoria) to his days as Supreme Commander in Southeast Asia during World War II, to India where he oversaw the move to independence to the Suez crisis, we meet a figure who was profoundly human. "Lucid, stylish, perfectly organized and immaculately presented, it has all Mountbatten's best qualities."--John Keegan, Sunday Times.