Flight of Eagles

By Jack Higgins

4.5 Stars

Action/Adventure/Suspense

Adult

This is my first written book review in a very long time. I might write an entry in my dormant blog explaining that. It doesn’t belong here. My daughter, knowing that I’m a Jack Higgins fan, found this at the local used book store and brought it home for me. This book is everything you would expect from a Jack Higgins novel. Masterful storytelling and well-written.

We follow Harry and Max Kelso, who are identical twins who follow in the footsteps of their World War I fighter pilot ace father. They are separated as boys, one living in the United States, the other in Germany. They fought on opposite sides during World War II. If that sounds a little corny, don’t worry about it. Higgins handles this well. It doesn’t come off that way.

I grew up completely enamored with airplanes, especially fighter planes and the pilots that flew them. As a writer, I understand “the suspension of disbelief” concept, and as a reader, because of my background, I struggled some with this at the beginning of the book. If you don’t have the background, I have you likely will not notice. The maneuver where a fighter pilot slams the “brakes” to get his opponent to overshoot or even crash, to me, is a trope. I think every fictional fighter pilot I’ve ever read pulls that stunt like it’s somehow genius (okay, Firefox was an exception). I’ll give him a pass on that partly because it is actually a thing. It does have the disadvantage that if your enemy is expecting it you’ve bled off too much energy and now you’re a sitting duck.

I feel I have to dock him a half point for something, though, and as a big fan, I almost feel guilty doing it. Erich (Bubi) Hartmann is a character in the book, and he is completely off on the actual historical person. I’m not sure I understand why. Maybe the personality is perfectly matched, but he was spending his time fighting on the Eastern Front, not working for Himmler. He captures Adolph Galland’s charisma, and he seems to be spot on with all the other historical characters. Higgins did his homework. I can’t help but think this was done on purpose. It is possible they met, and Higgins didn’t like him one bit. Only saying that because there is one ace, who will remain unnamed, who is considered a hero, but as a person, he is not a nice man. I’ve written people I don’t like into villains in my writing. Not saying that that is what is happening. I think we should try to be true to actual history, and I think the character could have been given a different name. Hartmann could have been left out of it.