"What good is a headstone?"

1939 and the efficient, well equipped German army is overwhelming Poland. With defeat inevitable, several patriotic Poles head for the border with a capture prize -a gadget nicknames Baby for delivery to the British to assist them in their continued fight against the Nazis.

Written in the present tense throughout, which provides instant immediacy, the story is tota!oh dependent on gung ho patriotic action with little development of character relying on the action speaking louder principle. Descriptions are provided more like set instructions between the abundance of conversation: In fact, it sounds more like the script for a play or film than a novel. Perhaps this would be less so in the written format.

Derek Shoales narrates with a machine gun rattling speed, again further encouraging the feel of a script being delivered with a basic command text working as a instruction.for the more animated conversation.. By the nature of the setting, almost all of the characters are either Polish, German or, occasionally, Russian, so each is given an appropriate accent and though quite possibly authentic, for this reader it became a great irritation given how densely the conversations were compared with the more descriptive text. Rather than invigorating the story, it.was annoyiing.

This is certainly a book for the more do-or-die action fans, sadly, not for me.
My thanks, however, to the rights holder who, at my request, freely gifted me with a complimentary. copy.

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