cover image The Rage of Angels

The Rage of Angels

Alan Fisher. Carroll & Graf Publishers, $21 (224pp) ISBN 978-0-7867-0409-5

Hackneyed antiwar handwringing mars this otherwise charmingly simple tale of a boy who falls in love with the girl next door. Handsome Englishman Marten Corby is a talented WWI pilot whose Flying Corps comrades can't help commenting on ""Bloody Corby's Luck"" in poker and battle. Yet, after two harrowing years in the trenches, Marten is reluctant to open fire on enemy planes. He frequently turns to whiskey to escape his ambivalence about the war--and to forget his infatuation with Mary Slater, the headmaster's daughter he lost to his dashing school friend (and fellow pilot) Peter West. Fortunately, as Marten flies nerve-racking missions day after day, he discovers a hidden fondness for his parents' neighbor, Jean Stacey, an independent young woman who earns her living as a pharmacist. Marten has always been intrigued and intimidated by Miss Stacey's forthright sex appeal, but it is not until his plane is shot down and he's sent home to recover from his injuries that Marten finds himself falling in love. Faced with the question of whether to go back and fight, Marten finds himself torn between Jean's hatred for a war she regards as senseless and his own need to prove himself. Even though Marten's fellow pilots are familiar types (courageous golden boy Peter, hardboiled man of action Smith, wisecracking American Harvey), it's hard not to be moved by their casual bravery, and the free-spirited Miss Stacey lends unconventional flair to Fisher's graceful period prose. (May)