Born in London, he served in the RAF before graduating from the Royal College of Art (which recently elected him a Senior Fellow). RAF bombers run the gauntlet of night-fighters and flak guns whilst civilians and firemen deal with the havoc they create on the ground. Burgess also put Joseph Heller’s “Catch-22” on his list, and it’s tempting to put “Bomber” and Heller’s classic side by side, as variations on the same theme. Deighton brings the story up to date (at the time of writing) and the fates of those who survived 1943 are vividly captured in the most evocative and sparing writing style of all.

Anthony Burgess, in Ninety-nine Novels, cited it as one of the 99 best novels in English since 1939.At these altitudes their power-weight ratios made these planes very vulnerable to the condition of the air through which they flew. Although now, in the cool of the night, the aircraft was steadier than it had been in the heated turbulence of afternoon, the air was still full of surprises.

In Series One of Ninety-Nine Novels, we learnt about authors including James Joyce, Thomas Pynchon, Iris Murdoch, V. But what is hardest of all to understand is that these raids were launched to weaken the will of their enemies in Germany and Japan. Weighty narration of this brilliant book that I've read many times and listened to in the brilliant BBC dramatised version. A ‘must’ for the legions of Len Deighton fans, this edition of Bomber from Grove Press is highly recommended for personal and community library World War II fiction collections. By contrast, there are dozens of characters in Bomber of approximately equal importance, which causes serious difficulties - they tend to be introduced with dull and lengthy biographical sketches, holding up the plot, and it is hard for the reader to remember who is who.The prose, at times, is barely a step up from technical writing (it is, of course, an important step). Soon this book and a very few others will serve as an epitaph to a time when Europe was a battlegound where everyone, of all ages and races, civilian and miltary, was plunged into a lottery of life and death. This, however, inspires concentration and repeated re-reading which constantly reveals new layers and depth of meaning. The moral dilemma and the psychological component are aptly portrayed in Kurt Vonnegut’s work, SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE as well as in non-fiction offerings such as historians Richard Overy’s THE BOMBERS AND THE BOMBED: ALLIED AIRWAR OVER EUROPE, 1940-1945; Frederick Taylor’s DRESDEN: TUESDAY FEBRUARY 13, 1945, AND COVENTRY NOVEMBER 14, 1940; Jorg Friedrich’s THE BOMBING OF GERMANY 1940-1945; and Keith Lowe’s INFERNO:THE FIERY DESTRUCTION OF HAMBURG 1943. Falling from 16,000 feet at 120 miles per hour (his body's terminal velocity) he hits the ground in 90 seconds and makes an indentation 12 inches deep.