Having never read any of the Courtney series or any other of Wilbur’s books before I found this a thoroughly enjoyable read. It would have been better to have read the previous books, however I had no problem filling in the gaps from the recaps available through the book. From the perspective of having read a lot of WW2 non-fiction the best part about this book by far was the graphic descriptions of the war. I especially enjoyed how the German fighter ace was portrayed in his fight against the Russians and the emotions he went through in such a negative time, there was also some great character development on the Russian side, rather than portraying cardboard cut-outs, this really brought the realism of the conflict to mind. So often we see the Germans cast as the bad guys, but in this novel, no nation played the part of the bad guys. The nazi characters naturally fulfilled this role, some interesting scenes were played out by Gerhard’s Nazi brother, which answered a few questions and added depth to the character, rather than taking the fallback evil brother position. Much of this book was a real page turner, if I could add any criticism, it would be the over emphasis on beautiful characters in the lead roles (the good guys) and the ugly bad guys, a little too simplistic to assess cosmetic beauty in this way. Also, the book ended quite quickly, this could have been extended to add more details on the characters towards the end, rather than having the characters fulfil the simple roles of good/bad/victim during these final pages. Overall a great read, I’ll be seeking out more of Wilbur’s books.