A painstakingly researched war story with complex characterizations.
Schrader, the author of The Emperor Strikes Back (2019), re-creates a pivotal period in World War II in this updated version of her 2007 novel.
In 1940, 24-year-old Royal Air Force fighter pilot Robin Priestman is injured on a difficult mission over France and forced to take leave at home in England. At a local canteen, he meets Emily Pryce, a smart Cambridge University grad, and the two fall quietly in love, foiling Robin’s mother’s plans to marry him to an heiress. When his broken ankle heals, he becomes a flight instructor for the RAF, tasked with turning very young men into flying aces. It’s not easy, and Robin’s anxiety about leading these boys into war is palpable in his solitary moments. In Germany, Klaudia von Richthofen has just joined the German Air Force Female Auxiliaries, surrounded by Nazi pilots, whom she sees as romantic heroes. Parallel stories from the German and British camps emerge: British pilot George “Ginger” Bowles is homesick and self-conscious about his lower-class status; Lt. Ernst Geuke, an inexperienced German wingman, worries he’ll never measure up to the Aryan ideal; he pines for Klaudia, who initially doesn’t give him the time of day. In the background are fears of capture or death by bomb or plane. Scenes exploring the characters’ inner lives are compelling, especially on the German side; for example, to Klaudia, Nazism is just about following rules, fitting in, and living up to her famous surname (she’s related to the infamous “Red Baron”), but back in her home village of Silesia, “Everyone still said good morning rather than ‘Heil Hitler’.” Schrader also succeeds in accurately portraying the bombing raids and defense missions that made up the Battle of Britain military campaign. Despite uneven pacing and occasional typographical errors, the story holds up, building to a satisfying, cinematic finale in which a few characters’ fates collide. Readers may find some of the plentiful military jargon difficult to parse despite the glossary included. However, Schrader’s attention to detail is sure to win over veterans, pilots, and military history buffs.
A painstakingly researched war story with complex characterizations.Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73531-394-8
Page Count: 594
Publisher: Cross Seas Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.
Stockett heads to Mississippi for another historical novel about feisty women.
This time, perhaps recalling criticisms of cultural appropriation in The Help (2009), she sticks to feisty white women, with one exception. The setting is Oxford in 1933. For two miserable years, 11-year-old Meg has lived in “the Orphan,” a county asylum for parentless girls. Chairlady Garnett—a villain so one-note she’d twirl a mustache if she had one—makes it her mission to ostracize the older girls she deems unadoptable, stigmatizing them as offspring of the “feebleminded” mothers who abandoned them. She particularly has it in for smart, sassy Meg, who refuses to believe her mother’s mysterious disappearance was deliberate. Elsewhere in Oxford, Birdie Calhoun comes to visit her sister Frances, who married a wealthy banker, to ask for money on behalf of their mother and grandmother back in Footely. Frances isn’t thrilled by this reminder of her impoverished small-town origins. But she’s trying to climb up in Oxford society by volunteering at the Orphan, the asylum’s books need to be done before the state inspector shows up in a few weeks, and Birdie is a bookkeeper. Having neatly arranged to keep Birdie in town and draw these two storylines together, Stockett goes on to spin a compulsively readable yarn with enough plot for a half-dozen novels. Birdie and Meg become friends, Meg is adopted despite Garnett’s best efforts, Meg’s mother turns up at the Orphan demanding to know where her child is—and that’s less than a quarter of the way through a long, winding narrative that keeps piling on more dramatic developments until all loose ends are neatly, if hastily, wrapped up in the final pages. Stockett might be making a point about Southern women facing facts and standing up for themselves, but mostly this is just a satisfyingly twisty tale that should make a great miniseries.
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781954118812
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
American honor, high-tech power, and on-the-ground bravery highlight this exciting yarn.
Deadly drones threaten chaos, and Ryans are in the thick of the fight.
A U.S. Air Force C-32A crashes near Bodrum, Turkey, killing all aboard, including the secretary of commerce. American investigators suspect sabotage, which elevates the issue up to the White House. Strangely, only 15 passengers had been aboard while 16 were listed on the manifest. Gunther Klaus, a Swiss moneyman for the Russians, was supposed to be on that plane. Code-named Fulcrum, he wants to get to the West to expose Russian chicanery. On the book’s dark side, Andrei Malenkov has a “little squadron” of drones he plans to load with radioactive cesium chloride that would change the world and make him rich. Given his intended target in northern Africa, the plan sounds plausible. Unfortunately for him, he must face Americans like series regulars Ding Chavez, John “I’m too old to die young” Clark, and Lieutenant Commander Katie “What the hell are we getting into now?” Ryan. The story is rich in weapons technology and balanced by Americans, to a one, displaying courage and solid character. At the top, President Jack Ryan tries to contain a simmering geopolitical mess by talking to an unfriendly President Nikita Yermilov. The tactical level is what readers live for—the gunfights, the explosions, the drones that hunt and kill—and always, always, another threat from a deadly adversary. The demise of the Cold War certainly didn’t end the supply of material for this Clancy-created series. In a world of constant turmoil, the Clancy crew will always be busy. There’s a sameness to the novels—the U.S., with its noble leader (alas, fictional) “trying to hold together a world that’s blowing apart,” and its noble warriors, like Katie, who “seemed to find action like a moth found light.” With this novel, thriller writer Larsen makes his first entry in the Clancy series. His style fits perfectly.
American honor, high-tech power, and on-the-ground bravery highlight this exciting yarn.Pub Date: May 19, 2026
ISBN: 9780593718094
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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