{"product_id":"2026200010470-secondhand-the-twenty-thousand-thieves","title":"The Twenty Thousand Thieves","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCondition remarks:\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003eCondition: Good. Jacket: Chipped, torn with minor damage. Page Condition: Yellowed. Markings: Previous owner — bookplate present on title page (Les Glover). Binding condition: Binding intact. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Twenty Thousand Thieves plunges readers into the brutal theatre of World War II, following Australian soldiers — the irreverent, hard-bitten men of the 2\/48th Battalion — through the harrowing North African campaign at Tobruk and El Alamein. Eric Lambert chronicles their camaraderie, survival, and moral reckoning with unflinching realism, capturing the larrikin spirit of the Digger against a backdrop of desert warfare, deprivation, and death. The novel presents not glory, but the grinding, unglamorous truth of men at war — men who steal, endure, and persist simply because there is no alternative.\n\nLambert's debut, drawn from his own wartime experience as an Australian soldier, stands as a landmark of mid-twentieth-century Australian literature. His prose is spare yet electric, grounding grand historical conflict in the intimate voices of ordinary men. The result is a novel that argues, quietly but powerfully, that heroism and criminality are separated by little more than circumstance — a question that lingers long after the last page is turned.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Secondhand Stock","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49130677010651,"sku":"2026200010470-SECONDHAND","price":15.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0523\/7646\/9701\/files\/3d003698-a36b-4904-a9fd-5f6e8fbce83c.png?v=1786588437","url":"https:\/\/bookgrocer.com\/products\/2026200010470-secondhand-the-twenty-thousand-thieves","provider":"Book Grocer","version":"1.0","type":"link"}