Spoilers ahead.

It's WW2 and a different location from any of Hennessy's other books. The setting is West Africa, Sierra Leone. The protagonists are a group of British ground crew and flying boats stationed in Jum, a small village. They fly patrols over Atlantic convoys to spot U-boats.

Jum is close to Freetown, which is a mid-way staging and resting point for convoys going from England to North Africa. Apparently the convoys go this long route to avoid going through the Mediterranean if I read it correctly. And Freetown is a convenient stopping point.

But apparently Jum is a wretched place, it's hot and damp there year round, typical jungle, where everything is broken or disintegrates. Worst is that Britain considers Jum a backwater so they never get first choice of supplies.

The plot is centered around a group of mostly time expired men who are waiting to go back to England. Unfortunately for them, there are a group of undercover Germans close by pretending to be French or Dutch and their job is to sabotage the planes and the station.

The setting is very well done, putting the reader in Sierra Leone. The plot is a little bit directionless. The problem is that there are too many characters. Better to focus on a couple of main ones but Henessey thinks the more the merrier. We even see the story from the German POV. The result is that the reader (me) doesn't really get attached to the characters and sometimes I even forget who they are. I do get attached to a couple of them but because there are so many people, not a lot (enough) is written about them.

3 stars for the unusual location and the action parts. Phillip Mclaughlin463 3

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