#WW2Fiction The Eagle Has Landed

The Eagle Has Landed - one of the best books I have ever read. It is about an assassination  plot masterminded by Heinrich Himmler. The year the story is set in is 1944, the target - Winston Churchill.

Jack Higgins is one of the great adventure writers, he ranks alongside Wilbur Smith and Alastair Maclean. He has an uncanny ability to create characters which come to life, one of my favourite in this book is a character called Liam Devlin. Devlin appears in many of Higgins' books. He is an ex IRA hitman who studied at Dublin University. Devlin has a wry sense of humour and can kill when ordered without a qualm. Kurt Steiner is the German paratroop officer who leads his men on the mission. He is saved from death in a penal unit, as were his men by agreeing to take part in the mission. Steiner is a warrior with a heart, who had previously been in trouble for attempting to save a Jewish girl from being shot in Warsaw. The Germans train for their mission at  a secret base, wear British uniforms and are dropped from a captured Dakota. They are helped by Devlin and an Afrikaans lady called Joanna Grey who has lived in Britain for years. Do they succeed in killing Churchill? You had better read it to find out or watch the film...

Jack Higgins - Flight Of Eagles

Yes, I know I should be completing a blog post about D-Day, but I'm finding it heavy going at the moment.

I will be posting a blogpost about the Allied breakout in Normandy soon, but in the meantime here is a review of the excellent Second World War thriller by Jack Higgins; Flight of Eagles.

I have always been an avid reader of Higgins, his thrillers have the usual twists and turns but can also be very dark, they don't always have a happy ending. What I do like about this book is how it ties up with several others, especially Cold Harbour. The main characters in the book are twins, Harry and Max Kelso. Their father was American, the mother German. They both turned out to be great pilots whilst in their teens following World War 1, taking after their father who had been an ace. When their father dies they are separated, one brother staying in the United States, the other leaves for Germany with his Mother - Baroness Von Halder. I don't think this would really happen to any family, would you want to separate siblings, especially twins?

The twins join the R.A.F and Luftwaffe respectively and also like their father, become decorated heroes. Himmler becomes involved and takes a special interest as Baroness Von Halder is conspiring against Hitler with the military elite who also oppose him.

Higgins captures the atmosphere of London under the blitz, you can nearly hear the bombs drop, Brigadier Munro makes his usual appearance and the book begins with the author surviving an air crash and meeting a lifeboat crew who tell him the story of the twins...

I can highly recommend this book, if you haven't read it, order it from Amazon :-)