Product Description

North Africa, 23 October 1942. The eve of El Alamein, the battle that turned the Second World War.

The greatest artillery barrage in the history of warfare is about to be unleashed. Within twelve days the Axis forces will be in full retreat, their dreams of controlling the Mediterranean and seizing the Suez Canal shattered. RAF fighter pilot, Englishman Kit Curtis, is in an unarmed photo-reconnaissance Spitfire, reporting Axis movements. Ossie Wolf, American volunteer, is seconded to fly in a covert operation behind enemy lines. Since they flew together during the Siege of Malta, both men have taken different paths, Curtis following his conscience, Wolf insouciant and headstrong, killer in the air, liability on the ground. But Alamein unites them in a desperate struggle for survival. And together they encounter the commander of the Axis forces, the Desert Fox himself...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #132951 in Books
• Published on: 2009-02-19
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

About the Author
Frank Barnard trained as a journalist before moving into public relations. He worked as managing director for major international consultancies before quitting at 50 to write full time and race cars. He is married with two children and four grandchildren with whom he enjoys sailing and sea-fishing near his home in Rye, Sussex.

Customer Reviews

As good as the first two novels...
This is the third in a series of totally gripping, well researched, characterful RAF tales. Frank Barnard is a very talented writer of WWII fiction; he produces a brilliant and thrilling combination of human interest drama and detailed military research.

It's 1942 and our mismatched pair of fighter aces find themselves posted to North Africa in the weeks leading to the allied offensive of El Alamein. Kit Curtis is a reconnaissance pilot flying unarmed Spitfires and charged with gathering crucial information for the imminent allied assault.

The uncompromising Ossie Wolf finds himself posted to an African backwater after a disastrous but hilarious PR recruitment tour of America. What else did the stuffed shirts expect!? In Africa he very soon finds his niche working as a trained assassin in Winston Churchill's 'dirty tricks' brigade where he is given his toughest challenge yet.

Fate intervenes and Ossie and Kit find themselves sharing a dessert adventure and questioning their values, pre-conceptions and the meaning of war. This is another great story, full of detail, drama, insight and suspense.

I am looking forward to the next in the series. Perhaps we will also soon hear some more news from France?

Another great book from Frank Barnard
I have read many factual books based on personal accounts of aerial combat in WW II with a particular bias toward our single seat fighter pilots. Geoffrey Wellum's `First Light' in my opinion, is the best autobiography ever written relating to this era.

I also enjoy a good novel and Frank Barnard brings together the adrenalin pumping, gut wrenching fear and exhilaration experiences of Mr Wellum and superimposes them into storylines where readers become part of the diminishing family of the `heroic few'.

The continuation of the wartime exploits of Kit Cutis, the gentlemanly British officer and Ossie Wolf, the promoted from the ranks, fascist-hating American volunteer continue their war effort in the only way they know how - out there on the edge but now in North Africa and in very different circumstances

Curtis has the unenviable task of attacking the German invasion with nothing more than a camera as he leads a squadron of reconnaissance pilots to pin point enemy positions for the allied forces at Alamein whilst Wolf continues his one-man mission to defeat the enemy, a covert mission flying a captured Storch (a kite on wheels) giving him the opportunity to dispose of Hitler's greatest tactician ... to out-fox the desert fox.

Bernard Cornwell, Conn Iggulden, Simon Scarrow and Wilbur Smith haven't written stories relating to this topic (apologies Mr Smith as `Eagle in the Sky' is not quite the same era) but if they did, they wouldn't be any better than this.

Frank Barnard once again proves that Derek Robinson has a major competitor.

Another winner
To Play the Fox is further proof of Frank Barnard's fine story-telling skills, displaying the same impressive research and eye for detail that made his previous novels so compelling. But it's not the book that some might have expected; the relentless action of Band of Eagles has given way to a more restrained, reflective narrative. Kit Curtis and Ossie Wolf, the main characters of the previous two novels, arrive in North Africa in 1942 on separate missions, their paths crossing only in the final chapters. Curtis is a photo-reconnaisssance pilot, and Wolf joins a covert operations team, flying a sedate, slightly comical Storch, a machine which becomes a character in its own right. The sense of anticipation pervading much of the book makes the final scenes that much more powerful. Moviemakers looking for a new take on World War II should look no further. To Play the Fox is an excellent historical novel that cries out to be adapted for the cinema screen.