WINGED ESCORT

Action stations again--this is Reeman's 16th novel of the British navy in WW II. Pilot Tim Rowan, who's already had a bad year (one crash) hover-covers over the Growler, part of an Allied convoy. There are other participants but mostly it's Rowan's story, after he's sent off to knock out a tanker, after he hears his home and parents have been blitzed to death, after he's the only survivor of an exploding flare picked up in the water, and after he reaches Sydney where he falls in love with another officer's wife--an officer who has no morals nor any. ethos of war except as a ""game."" Not so Reeman, who handles his novels with authority and conscience for that stand-by receivership.