Gray Eagles

Knife-edge suspense, larger-than-life characters and kinky sex are the reliable ingredients in Unkefer's lengthy novel. After 31 years, members of the Luftwaffe convene in Arizona, guests of Eric Malzahn and his seductive wife Marta. Her brother (with whom she shares a hot tub) is Rudi, one of the pilots downed by the American Roger Lowen in 1944. Lowen belongs now to the Confederate Air Force where he finds the esprit that had united him and his fellow pilots during World War II. The CAF are the targets of revenge planned by the Germans whom Marta lusts after, flaunting her hero-worship, to Eric's despair. The author dwells on details of the characters' daily lives and preparations of the imported, rebuilt Messerschmitts that stun the crowd at an air show where Lowen and the other P-15 Mustang pilots are performing. The Luftwaffe airmen attack and destroy the American planes, then vanish like ghosts. The shocks increase until the finale, when Marta unburdens herself of a secret that chills her listener and the reader. 75,000 first printing; $75,000 ad/promo. U.K. rights: Macmillan/Pan; translation rights: Morrow. January 15