Goshawk Squadron

Goshawk Squadron completes Derek Robinson's great trilogy of Royal Flying Corps novels. As one reviewer said: 'Robinson mixes action with cynicism and hard-bitten humour that has you halfway between tears and laughter.' The story is sometimes funny because humour came easily to young men - and so did death. It's 1918, and Stanley Woolley, C.O. of Goshawk Squadron, sets about replacing their schoolboy notions of sport, fair play, chivalry in the sky, with his own belief: that there are only two kinds of fighter pilot: victims and murderers. Goshawk Squadron was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and is as convincing - and as splendidly incorrect politically - now as when it was first published.