Search results for ""author jonathan falla""

A beautifully written and absorbing story of exile and redemption set against the stark Patagonian wilderness at the start of the modern age. Matthieu Macanan has fled his home in France, to work as a doctor in a remote region of South America where his past is unknown. There he tends to the locacl tribes and tries to avoid contact with European settlers. When Silke Kahn and her husband Theo fly into his world with plans to run an airmail service in the area, his reclusive life is irrevocably altered. While Matthieu struggles to resist his attraction to Silke, hostilities created by the coming war escalate, drawing the local people into their orbit and forcing the doctor to decide which side he is on. But what is he hiding from? Can he really help the local tribes to survive the disease and trouble the Europeans unleash? In offering refuge to Silke Kahn, has Matthieu finally committed a fatal move?

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Robert le Page flew with the Fleet Air Arm from 1940 to 1945, mostly in 816 Squadron flying carrier-based Fairey Swordfish. He saw action mine-laying off Cherbourg, hunting U-boats, escorting convoys in North Atlantic and in the Arctic seas and covering D-Day. Much of his early war years were aboard HMS Dasher and he was lucky to be ashore when the carrier mysteriously blew and sank in the Clyde. This decimated 816 Squadron which was eventually re-equipped and then worked up to operational readiness to fly from HMS Tracker. His story is full of insights into wartime naval flying. When they were tasked with finding and attacking German E Boats they found that in a headwind these powerful boats could outdistance the 'Stringbag'. They devised a plan which was to glide as quietly as possible on their approach to the quarry and power up the engine only seconds before they attacked - however they never managed to sink one. Once when landing in rough weather his aircraft was waved to go round again. With throttle wide open the Swordfish struggled back into the air, but alas the tailhook snagged the top wire of the barrier protecting other parked aircraft. The author remembered staring down from the stalling aircraft to see a terror stricken fitter gazing up at him. Fortunately all survived.

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