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DAMNED GOOD SHOW

Name: DAMNED GOOD SHOW
Author: Derek Robinson
ISBN: 0-304-36310-3

by Derek Robinson ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2003

Brilliant truths about smart lads in the days before smart bombs.

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Armed but not yet dangerous, Britain’s bomber pilots grope their way to a strategy in early WWII.

Authenticity and a sneaky style that mixes borderline cliché and brutal truth distinguish this rather subversive take on a story of inept but heroic flying. Robinson (Kentucky Blues, p. 1501, etc.) has been shortlisted for the Booker (Goshawk Squadron, 1971), something of a triumph for readers who feel that the writing in the “genres” can be not only more readable but more intelligent than much literary fiction. Robinson’s trick here is to slip a raw and unpleasant truth (early British bombing was laughably ineffective) in amongst the antic comings and goings of gallant but frighteningly young pilots. The artistry is largely invisible, and the superb soundness of the facts impossible to miss. An ex-RAF fighter pilot, Robinson went back to the original documents and to the flyers themselves to reconstruct the chaotic battle waged by Britain’s poorly protected and poorly led bomber pilots, who were not only getting decimated by the Germans but badly losing the p.r. battle to the much-ballyhooed fighters in the Battle of Britain. While the newspapers were reporting gloriously effective raids on German ports and factories, the truth, as carefully sorted out by Flight Lieutenant “Skull” Skelton, Intelligence Officer of 409 Squadron, was that the boys were mostly dropping their bombs on empty spaces more often than not miles from their targets. Skelton’s battle with the facts, and the Bomber Command’s weird reluctance to deal with its losses, are just two of the stories here. Among others: the hasty marriage of a penniless pilot to a rich aristocrat, the adventures of a film team, the borrowing of a Bentley, and the findings of a brilliant young investigator with a direct link to Churchill. Readers be warned: appealing characters get shot down and die. It’s war, and Robinson never lets you forget it.

Brilliant truths about smart lads in the days before smart bombs.

Pub Date: March 1, 2003

ISBN: 0-304-36310-3

Page Count: 316

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2002

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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Sisters in and out of love.

Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.

Pub Date: May 1, 2003

ISBN: 0-345-45073-6

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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by Kristin Hannah

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THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

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THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

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THE ALCHEMIST

by Paulo Coelho & translated by Margaret Jull Costa ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 1993

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.

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Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.

The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.