Flight to Mons

Kliatt, July, 2005 by John E. Boyd

FLIGHT TO MONS. Alexander Fullerton. 2003. Read by Peter Wickham. 10 tapes. 12 hrs. Soundings Audiobooks. 1-84283-677-3. $84.95. Vinyl; plot, author, reader notes. SA

This is a war story with romance. It opens in England in the winter of 1917 during the Great War. Lieutenant Charlie Holt, dashing British dirigible pilot, becomes romantically linked to the widow of a close friend. After Charlie sinks a German U-boat, he is tapped for a secret mission to fly to the continent and bring out a Belgian spy. There is a twist: although the Germans are about to arrest her, the spy will not leave without her elderly mother. This increases the odds against success. Flying in the open cockpit of a highly flammable hydrogen balloon in below-freezing temperatures in enemy territory is more than enough danger. Adding two passengers, one a possible invalid, increases the peril even further.

Reader Wickham has a heavy British accent and sounds like a character in a British program on PBS. He handles a variety of voices with ease--middle-class English, the burr of a Scottish major, French-accented women, and the sinister accent of German officers. The author's descriptions, the style of writing, and the narrator's tone give it a 1917 flavor. Prof. John E. Boyd, Jenkintown, PA

S--Recommended for senior high school students.

A--Recommended for advance students and adults. This code will help librarians and teacher working in high schools where there are honors and advanced placement students. This also will help extend KLIATT's usefulness in public libraries.