In the original dustsheet. Maroon cloth binding with gilt title on the spine.

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1943. The sleepy Suffolk village of Bedenham is jerked into the twentieth century and the harsh realities of war by the arrival on its doorstep of an American bomber base and its three thousand inhabitants. For Billy Street, fourteen, a London evacuee uneasily billeted with the village blacksmith, the American invasion is heaven sent – unlimited opportunities and acceptance at last within a community he loves. Yet a concealed past threatens his new happiness. Billy’s school teacher, Heather Garrett, awaits word of a husband missing for eighteen months. A stranger to Bedenham, Heather’s sense of isolation – and village suspicions – are heightened when troubled American pilot John Hooper reaches for her friendship. And daily the skies fill with the bombers and their ten-man crews who, during that bleak autumn of 1943, suffered losses on a catastrophic scale. For Hooper, tormented by earlier loss, leading Misbehavin’ Martha and her disorderly crew safely through their 25 designated bombing missions becomes a personal crusade.

Reviews:

• Impeccably researched and emotionally gripping, this is the war story of the year.

• Set in Suffolk, 1943, this is a brilliantly tense and very moving story of a B-17 Flying Fortress aircrew and their struggle to survive their 25 bombing missions. So much WW2 fiction is either of the swashbuckling Boys Own type or else romantic chick-lit in 1940s clothing so it’s very refreshing to find something that is written with emotional restraint and a genuine respect for historical integrity. The publisher’s blurb above outlines the plot very well but what makes this outstanding is the richness and detail of the evocation: from the high-tension of the bombing raids over Germany, to the elegiac youth of the aircrews, and the responses of the Suffolk villagers to this incursion of American airmen. At the heart of the book are a series of relationships: the evolving bonds between the crew of the Misbehavin’ Martha as they struggle to complete their 25 missions; and that between their damaged pilot, Hoop, and the local schoolmistress. This avoids all types of clichéd sentimentality and makes the story feel genuinely fresh and nail-bitingly tense. The combat episodes, especially, are superbly done and fraught with anxiety. So a superb portrait of courage and heroism under the most intense psychological pressures, and a very moving novel – highly recommended.

The Author, Robert Radcliffe lives in Suffolk and is an experienced pilot. He has written four novels, two published under a different name.