It's Me Again

 

By Donald Jack

5 Stars

Historical/Humour

Adult

This is the third book in the series and brings the opening trilogy to a close. My wife searched for this book online to buy me as a gift. When it arrived, I was in for a surprise. The copy she bought was a first-edition hardcover. I've had a lot of books over the years, but I don't think I've ever had a first edition anything before. I noticed changes between this edition and the later edition that I originally read. One of the memorable scenes was completely replaced, and there were other things that were different. I don't really know if it made the book better or not. The one new scene was definitely better, but the other differences may have changed the ending feel of the book. In that case, I preferred the original.

Bandy is sent back to the Royal Flying Corps to lead a squadron. He actually demonstrates excellent leadership there. Readers won't be disappointed. He's still the oblivious anti-hero we've come to love. He blunders from one catastrophe to the next. There are some echoes of other Canadian aces from the war, but that's a topic for another time and place. In the air, Bandy is in his element.

Once again, Bandy reaches the height of heroism and falls from grace and ends up being sent to fight in the Russian civil war. After that, he goes home to Canada. The closing scene beautifully echoes the opening scene in book one. I found it immensely satisfying.

The greatest strength of this series and especially this one book is that it doesn't lose sight of the seriousness and the horror of its historical setting. It goes through the First World War, the Spanish Flu and the Russian Civil War. There is an account of personal loss for Bandy that shocked and upset me. I mourned his loss. It put everything in perspective, though.

Highly recommend this series. I think it created a character that readers just didn't want to go away and so the series continued on.