Bomber

Len Deighton — one of the masters of twentieth-century espionage fiction — combines his expertise as both historian and novelist in Bomber, the classic World War II novel that relates, in devastating detail, the twenty-four-hour story of an allied bombing raid.

Skilled Royal Air Force bomber pilot Sam Lambert is exhausted, and his veteran crewmen have just been replaced by an inexperienced new team. Victor von Löwenherz, a German night fighter pilot who intercepts RAF bombers in his Junkers Ju 88, looks on with horror at the Nazi regime. And Hansl, a German boy in the small market town of Altgarten, sleeps at home. Lambert and his crew prepare for a bombing raid on the Ruhr area. It’s a night that many will never forget.

Bomber is a masterful, gripping, minute-by-minute account of what occurs over the next twenty-four hours. Told through the eyes of protagonists on all sides and astonishingly precise in its depictions of planes, weapons, and behind-the-scenes war strategy, this is Len Deighton at his best. An unforgettable portrait of war, both in the air and on the ground.