A captivating war novel that immerses readers in the craft of killing and its somber results.
A Royal Air Force pilot battles the Luftwaffe during World War II in Forsyth’s historical novel.
This third installment of the adventures of Allan Chadwick follows the RAF squadron leader into war, which will challenge his skills as a pilot and position him as a catalyst in the innovation of aviation technology. He’s soon commanding a front-line squadron of Spitfire fighter planes in the Battle of Britain and gets shot down several times—once parachuting into the English Channel—in the course of ferocious dogfights with Germany’s fearsome Messerschmitt 109s. Chadwick then goes to work in the obscure but vital area of electronic navigation aids intended to improve the woeful accuracy of British bomber aircraft. He’s in the thick of designing equipment that uses radio beams to guide warplanes precisely to their targets and then testing it on bombing runs over German-occupied Europe. On one raid he gets shot down over France and embarks on a picaresque journey in which he beds a farmer’s two daughters, falls in with the Resistance, and, finally, hijacks a Messerschmitt 110 back to Britain. Put in charge of a precision-bombing unit, he stages a raid on Berlin that interrupts a speech by Luftwaffe chief Hermann Goering, who vows to take personal vengeance for the humiliation. The author, a former RAF pilot, paints a vivid panorama of the air war, including the daily grind of fighter combat that left veterans haggard and twitchy with stress; the hours-long, freezing-cold bombing runs punctuated by storms of anti-aircraft fire; the hair-raising crash landings; and the numbing drumbeat of deaths. His writing mixes fascinating deep dives into the gadgetry and tactics of aerial combat with gripping action scenes conveyed in brutally evocative prose (“Ramsey was prostrate besides his seat, his body lacerated by dozens of shrapnel fragments. His head sagged, and Chadwick could see he was practically decapitated”). Chadwick is an appealing hero—stoic and resourceful, but quietly marked by the horrors unfolding around him.
A captivating war novel that immerses readers in the craft of killing and its somber results.Pub Date: May 1, 2023
ISBN: 9798985322071
Page Count: 388
Publisher: Yacht Fiona
Review Posted Online: April 24, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Better set aside several uninterrupted hours for this toxic rocket. You’ll be glad you did.
A successful Vermont podcaster who’s elicited confessions from dozens of criminals finds herself on the other side of the table, in the hottest of hot seats, over her own troubled past.
Poe Webb was only 13 when she saw her mother, Margaret McMillian, get stabbed to death by the man she’d picked up for a quickie. Poe had vowed revenge, but how could a kid find and avenge herself on a stranger who’d vanished as quickly as he appeared? In the long years since then, Poe’s made a name for herself as a top true-crime podcaster who routinely invites her guests to tell her audience exactly what they did. Now, she’s being pressed, and pressed hard, by Ian Hindley, whose fake name echoes those of England’s Moors Murderers, to join him in a livestream her fans will find riveting because, as Hindley tells her, he’s actually Leopold Hutchins, the pickup who stabbed her mother 14 times when she failed to use her safe word. Skeptical? Hindley knows endless details about the killing that were never released by the police. If Poe won’t do the broadcast, Hindley threatens to harm everyone she loves: her father; her producer and lover, Kip Nguyen; and her black Lab, Bailey. And there’s one more complication that makes the pressure on Poe even more unbearable. Seven years ago, against all odds, she succeeded in tracking Leopold Hutchins from Burlington to New York and killing him herself. In fact, it’s that murder that Hindley most wants her to talk about. Which bully is more fearsome, the man who’s threatening her or the man she killed?
Better set aside several uninterrupted hours for this toxic rocket. You’ll be glad you did.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9781464226229
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
An accomplished but emotionally undercooked courtroom drama by the author who made that genre popular.
Having been falsely convicted of murder himself years ago, prosecutor Rusty Sabich defies common wisdom in defending his romantic partner’s adopted son against the same accusation.
Now 76, Rusty has retired to the (fictitious) Skageon Region in the upper Midwest, far removed from Kindle County, Turow’s Chicago stand-in, where he was a star attorney and judge. Aaron Housley, a Black man raised in a bleached rural environment, has had his troubles, including serving four months for holding drugs purchased by Mae Potter, his erratic, on-and-off girlfriend. Now, after suddenly disappearing to parts unknown with her, he returns alone. When days go by without Mae’s reappearance, it is widely assumed that Aaron harmed her. Why else would he be in possession of her phone? Following the discovery of Mae’s strangled body and incriminating evidence that points to Aaron, Rusty steps in. Opposed in court by the uncontrollable, gloriously named prosecutor Hiram Jackdorp, he fears he’s in a lose-lose situation. If he fails to get Aaron off, which is highly possible, the boy’s mother, Bea, will never forgive him. If Rusty wins the case, the quietly detached Bea—who, like half the town, has secrets—will have trouble living with the unsparing methods Rusty uses to free Aaron. In attempting to match, or at least approach, the brilliance of his groundbreaking masterpiece Presumed Innocent (1987), Turow has his own odds to overcome. No minor achievement like a previous follow-up, Innocent (2010), the new novel is a powerful display of straightforward narrative, stuffed with compelling descriptions of people, places, and the legal process. No one stages courtroom scenes better than this celebrated Chicago attorney. But the book, whose overly long scenes add up to more than 500 pages, mostly lacks the gripping intensity and high moral drama to keep those pages turning. It’s an absorbing and entertaining read, but Turow’s fans have come to expect more than that.
An accomplished but emotionally undercooked courtroom drama by the author who made that genre popular.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9781538706367
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2024
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