Angel, Archangel - Softcover

Nick Cook

Softcover

ISBN 10: 033031856X ISBN 13: 9780330318563

Publisher: Pan Books, 1991

Synopsis

The Allies are advancing on Berlin in the dying days of the Second World War, but the Russians are plotting much more than the end of the Third Reich. Operation Archangel's aim is for Soviet troops to blast their way straight to the English Channel. With fake Soviet tanks lined up near the German border in Czechoslovakia, two British spy pilots stumble across this elaborate charade. Wing Commander Robert Fleming and Rhodesian expatriate Piet Kruze become the front line in the effort to defuse the Russian scheme. But they must first penetrate the heart of the Nazi defences and steal the one weapon that can possibly destroy Archangel: the cream of the new generation of German jet fighter bombers.

About this title

About the Author:

Nick Cook has enjoyed an eclectic and varied career as an author, journalist, broadcaster and entrepreneur, all of it underpinned by his passion for aviation, history and technology. Starting out as a cub-reporter for the trade publication Interavia in the mid-1980s, where he learned about the business of the international aerospace industry from the ground up, Nick subsequently joined the world renowned Jane’s Defence Weekly, initially as a reporter, rising quickly to become Aviation Editor, a position he held until 2001. It was during his first years at Jane’s that Nick started to write books, his first novel, Angel, Archangel, being published in the UK and the US in 1989 to critical acclaim. Angel, Archangel was the culmination of Nick’s lifelong interest in combat aviation, and especially the aerial history of World War 2, and allowed him to indulge something that he was never able to do in the dry analysis of his day-job – combining story-telling with history in the formulation of the ‘what-if’ thriller. In 1991, Nick followed up with his second novel, Aggressor, which was set in the turbulent world of the contemporary Middle East. In this, US and Russian special forces secretly combine to hunt down and kill a rogue fundamentalist Islamic spiritual leader who is linked to a series of terrorists outrages – many years before anyone had ever heard of Osama Bin Laden. He lives and works with his wife and two children in London.

From Publishers Weekly:

Set in early 1945, this first novel by a Britsh aeronautics expert is a period technothriller. A cabal of Soviet officers is on the verge of launching Operation Archangel, an all-out offensive against not the Wehrmacht but Russia's Western allies. Exposing the plot may incite a new world war. Instead, a top British intelligence pilot, Rhodesian-born Peter Kruze, is sent into the heart of the Reich, directed to steal a German jet, the only plane with the capability to reach and destroy the conspirators' headquarters in a surgical strike. Cook has little fictional expertise; his characters are crudely drawn, and the plot does not invariably distinguish between red herrings and dead ends. The novel's air-combat sequences, however, are as gripping as any in the genre. The labyrinth of conspiracies and double-crosses keeps tension at high pitch. And the final episode incorporates a twist sure to evoke admiration from any reader who has ever wondered just how the Cold War got started.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Pan Books
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 033031856X
• ISBN 13: 9780330318563
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 416