These are deeply sad books, compiled as labours of respectful remembrance, and embodying a huge amount of research. Daunting on first examination, they become truly compelling and repay repeated study.
If Chapman cannot quite restore vitality to the ghostly population of these Silent Cities, he can inject a flavour of the lives that were lost and the grieving which ensued. A century on from Passchendaele, the most prolonged scene of intense fighting along the whole of the Western Front, the emotions still run deep.

Church Monuments 32

A comprehensive and highly emotive volume, borne of years of intensive research and many trips to the battlefields of World War One. It seeks to humanise the Menin Gate Memorial North, to offer the reader a chance to engage with the personal stories of the soldiers whose names have been chiselled there in stone.

The Armourer, February 2017