At 19:53 04/04/01 -0700, Faure, Marin, wrote
>Jackal through The Fist of God. Len Deighton is another author who's done
>a superb job
>of maintaining an excellent style (in my opinion). One of his books
>that's well worth
>reading, although maybe not so well known as his other works, is Bomber.
I agree completely about "Bomber" but in my opinion I would have to say
that his best book, apart from the spy series stuff which is really quite
engaging, has to be "Goodbye Mickey Mouse"
It concerns an American P-51 Mustang pilot escorting bombers during the
daily raids over Europe.
Apart from being ineffably poignant, the book just reeks of avgas, leather,
rubber, glycol and everything else one associates with high powered piston
aircraft. I knew before reading it that Deighton had never flown as a
pilot but by the end I was convinced he must have in a past life or
something because all those small crucial bits that spell verisimilitude
were perfect and in many cases were the sorts of things that only someone
who has flown would notice. (Apparently he took several years to research
the book)
But if you took away all the technical references and wiped your editing
knife through all of the action sequences you would still be left with a
marvelous novel about the human condition.
I wish I could turn this into a more Land Rover relevant post regarding
authors but apart from Desmond Bagley and Nevil Shute who featured Land
Rovers in some of their works there isn't a lot of LR fiction out
there. That said, if you like writers who can above all tell a good story
about engaging characters but who can also write well about aircraft,
ships, guns or stuff made out of Meccano I can recommend; Gavin Lyall,
Brian Lecomber, Dick Francis (his wife is the researcher), Hammond Innes,
and Geoffrey Jenkins, among many others.
Rick Grant
1959 Series II "88"
VORIZO
Rick Grant Communications
Media and Crisis Management
Calgary Ottawa
www.rickgrant.com
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