An admirable addition to World War II fiction that highlights the contributions of heavy-bombing crews.
This incisive World War II novel skillfully brings readers along on nerve-wracking bombing runs in German-held territory.
More importantly, Durham’s (Wade’s War, 2013, etc.) fourth WWII–based book introduces the men behind such daring raids—and the war’s effect on them. Based in Bassingbourn, England, the B-17 crews in the 91st Bomb Group of the 8th Air Force voluntarily fly into unknown, frequently terrifying situations to deliver their payloads and then pray they make it back to base. Lt. Bob Foster is the pilot of one such 10-member crew, until he suddenly isn’t any longer. That’s because, in a public-relations maneuver, Lt. Harmon Roberts III, son of a key U.S. senator, is appointed the pilot of Foster’s crew, with Foster reluctantly becoming the co-pilot. Naturally, Foster isn’t too thrilled with this development: “He’d stolen my crew, my airplane and now, my medal….I was getting the short end of the stick on this deal and I was sore about it.” Eventually, Foster comes around in his opinion of Roberts, which is the key to the narrative of this novel, as the pair will have to work together well to survive in the daunting months and years that follow. In his author’s note, Durham explains his motivation for writing: “I…have worked to present an accurate if fictional look at the conditions in which the brave crews flew and fought.” He’s met his goal; the research fueled by Durham’s passion shines through in the terrifying battle scenes that he brings alive for readers, successfully capturing the overwhelming attacks such bombers faced. Other than Foster and Roberts, Durham’s characters aren’t as well developed, but that doesn’t detract much from his story. The deliberate pacing of the novel’s action and the development of the friendship between the two main characters also sustain this enjoyable military thriller.
An admirable addition to World War II fiction that highlights the contributions of heavy-bombing crews.Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2014
ISBN: 978-1502524492
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dog Ear Publisher
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.
Pub Date: April 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41224-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
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