Blitzkreig strikes on more than one level in Masters of Battle (Viking, £25) by Terry Brighton. What else would one expect from the triple volcano of Britain’s Army commander Montgomery, the US’s Patton and Hitler’s Rommel? The egos of these three wartime personalities light up the pages as richly as those who charged with the Light Brigade in Brighton's previous book Hell Riders.

Patton fought a personal battle against Monty with the same ferocity as his storming assault after Normandy. At the same time, both had great respect for Rommel. Monty shines through as the most efficient commander, tactically cautious in comparison with the forceful battle tactics of Patton and Rommel.

Brighton is a master of the quote that illuminates the epic struggle between the three commanders. King George VI on a visit to Monty in North Africa said he was delighted to discover that the British general was not after his job. "Old Blood and Guts" Patton, wearing an ivory-handled revolver, called Monty a "cocky little limey".

Monty actually carried a portrait of Rommel, icon of the desert war, in his campaign caravan.

Brighton also provides a deep insight into the progress of the war — El Alamein, the Sicily landings, the Normandy conquest and the race across the Rhine. It is cracking good stuff, steeped in anecdote and the savagery of engagement.

The egomaniacs were not only locked in a physical battle; others wrestled with the war from the greatest height. The grand alliance between Britain and America, represented by Churchill and Roosevelt, is magnificently displayed by Andrew Roberts in Masters and Commanders (Allen Lane, £25). The titans of the "special relationship" (sometimes torn asunder) were supported in their respective corners by the gifted Lord Alanbrooke and tough General George Marshall. There are enough slugging matches to make Monty and Patton appear good friends.

Both Brooke and Marshall were denied their real taste of power — in the Middle East and Normandy — but it is their gritty logic that underpins the strategic brilliance of their leaders in the long haul before Germany's downfall.

This is Roberts' finest book, a sweeping view of the flashpoints of war, particularly the landings in Europe. Finally, an epitaph for a "quartet of power."

If Churchill was the warrior, then the paintbrush was his weapon. The old maestro was in his element in the skulduggery of war, particulary in the use of deception with dummy tanks, phantom armies, double agents and forged documents, creating illusions that fooled the Germans time and again. Two new books on the wartime art of deception, Churchill's Wizards (Faber, £25) by Nicholas Rankin and Deceiving Hitler (Osprey, £17.99) by Trevor Crowdy are superbly evocative of British imagination in an array of secret endeavours.

Crowdy sets the scene well: "From Kabul to London, Nairobi to Reykjavik, the German intelligence stations were fed a picture entirely of the Allies' making, all of which were digested, sent to Berlin and placed before Hitler and his staff."

Crowdy is particularly good on the "turning" of captured German agents, and tells the story of a man called Garbo who persuaded the Germans that the D-Day landings would be in Calais and not Normandy. This cunning betrayal came in the wake of an earlier feint when a body was cast from a submarine off Spain carrying false papers pointing to Greece as an invasion destination instead of Sicily.

Then there was broadcaster Sefton Delmer, who aimed his banter at the sexual encounters of the German High Command, and Dudley Clarke, the man behind the SAS (a fake at the time) and whose ingenuity was crafted into all kinds of action in the North African desert.

While Crowdy concentrates memorably on the Second World War, Rankin extends his scope — Laurence of Arabia included — to the First, not being able to resist an admirable recounting of the Allied forces' escape from Gallipoli. According to the Chinese general Sun Tzu: "All warfare is based on deception." Churchill would add: "War is a game played with a smile.”