Product Description

The third book in the wartime series continuing from Tuesday’s War and Charlie’s War.

The war’s over. Charlie Bassett is one of England’s brave young survivors. Haunted by one woman’s smile and by his wartime adventures, he finally returns back home to try to pick up the pieces of his broken life. There’s just one small problem – everyone thinks he’s dead.

Arrested as a deserter, his only way out of prison is to work for a shadowy government agency monitoring the growth of Communism in post-war Europe. Special radio missions keep him busy in the air, while his all-female team, headed up by the icy Miss Miller, keeps his feet firmly on the ground.

But then Charlie is forced to go undercover as a spy in a Communist group called the Rubble Rats. The government calls them the Red Menace, but Charlie finds a group of hard-working families just trying to get by – and his loyalties are torn. When he discovers that Grace Baker is one of them, Charlie must make some difficult decisions. For king and country? Or for the woman he once loved?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #105510 in Books
• Published on: 2008-03-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

About the Author

David Fiddimore was born in 1944 in Yorkshire and is married with two children. He worked for five years at the Royal Veterinary College before joining HM Customs and Excise, where his work included postings to the investigation and intelligence divisions. Nobody’s War is the third novel in the Charlie Bassett trilogy. With his first novel, Tuesday's War, David Fiddimore reached the final of the first ever Richard & Judy 'How to Get Published' competition.

Customer Reviews

1947 re-lived
I think this is probably the best of the Charlie Bassett books so far, though they are all pretty excellent. His writing is getting better all the time.

I think what marks this novel apart is the depth of human relationships, the way Charlie's new love interest develops (it's a shameless yet moving extra marital affair with a girl he seduces) and the moments of new understanding he shares with Grace. There is also the insightful treatment of post-war social issues such as homelessness, food rationing, emerging communism and the injustice metered out to war veterans.

Fiddimore's narrative is taut, loaded, vivid and action-packed. He populates his stories with bizarre yet fascinating characters, often placing them in comic, ironic situations.

This book brought to life a period of British history I had rarely thought about before. There are credible suppositions too, for example that the RAF were conducting profile targeting on soviet topography as early as 1947.

I really can't wait to read the next one...

Charlie's Return - eagerly awaitied and not disappointed
Set in 1947, the third volume of the exploits of Charlie Bassett sees him returning from an extended period overseas to pick up the threads of his life. After an initial hiccup which sees him thrown into jail as a deserter, he is released to work in his old trade of Radio Operator for the RAF. In this book Charlie is older and shrewder, if not wiser (especially where women are concerned).

David Fiddimore has skilfully woven facts from his own background into a fine and gripping tale. Once again the story cracks and fizzes along. He conjurs up the weariness and paranoia of the immediate post-war years with consumate skill - a world where the old rules haven't quite been abandoned, and the new ones haven't quite been adopted. A rich variety of interesting characters, some familiar from the two earlier novels, follow Charlie through the cracks in this moral landscape, in which the lead character is forced to examine his motivations whilst simultaneously staying one step ahead of the various women in his life, the Russians, and the British Secret Service.

For the third time Fiddimore has created a novel I couldn't put down. I'm now re-reading the earlier two books in the vain attempt to fil the gap that has been created since I finished it. I sincerely hope that he does indeed, as he teases us in the Afterword, put pen to paper with the further adventures of Charlie Bassett.

To anyone reading this - buy this book (and the other two), you won't be disappointed. And to Mr Fiddimore: MORE PLEASE!

Excellent! More please.
The third volume featuring Charlie Bassett and his war time exploits in the RAF. This time we find him in the immediate post-war era when it was a very strange world as some sort of peace descended on the battered survivors. He becomes involved in the initial hostilities between the allies and the Soviets, the forgotten war of the title. There is also the irksome matter of the rise of communist sympathies within the West. Another masterful dialogue in the first person mode, though this time we learn that he is recalling events whilst in his eighties and living in contemporary times. The only thing that jars slightly in this episode is the relentless sexual abandon which pervades his life and those around him. Was it really like this? I suppose that would explain the baby boom at least!