Thurlow’s War
Alex Rosenberg
2025
Double Dagger Books
Long before World War Two comes to the US, Will Thurlow flies and fights, first for Republican Spain, then with the Chinese against Japan. Even before Pearl Harbor, he moves on to serving with the Flying Tigers. These assignments expose Thurlow to repeated dangers, not just from enemy action, but from someone on his own side, trying to get him killed. His suspicions are confirmed by his lover, Wendy, a half-caste Chinese spy, as she lies dying in a hospital after escaping the Japanese.
When the Flying Tigers are absorbed into the US Air Corps, the War department unaccountably reaches down to transfer Thurlow to Britain. There he is kept leading the least experienced B-17 crews on the most dangerous bomber missions. It becomes obvious to him that someone in the War Department is trying hard to get him killed in action. In London he meets and falls in love with Ellen, a civil-servant working on the effectiveness of strategic bombing of German. After too many missions Thurlow is finally shot down over Germany. Anti-Nazi elements in German intelligence help him get back to Britain with information that could make the strategic bombing campaign against Germany much more effective. Thurlow and the Brits have to find a way to get the Air Force high command to change targeting.
As an escapee, he is not allowed to fly bomber missions again. Instead of a staff job, Thurlow is immediately shipped out to the Pacific. Whoever has been trying to get him killed flying bomber missions is still at it. It’s 1944 and in New Guinea Thurlow is flying P-38 fighters, and still not beyond the reach of whoever has been trying to have him die in action. It’s now that he finally comes face to face with the powerful American who’d been pulling strings to get him killed for the last 5 years.