Rating: 
Summary: An Entertaining But Predictable WWII Thriller
Review: Flight Of Eagles is better than most of Higgins' recent books, but is still not much more than a light,entertaining, predictable thriller. If only Higgins would leave the formulaic style he's developed and return to the great types of stories he used to write--like The Eagle Has Landed and Confessional.
Rating: 
Summary: A book of Intriguing WWII action!
Review: I have read most of Jack Higgin's books and it is my opinion that this is one of his finest works. Harry and Max Kelso are twins with an English father and a German mother who is the heir to a German Baroness. This makes Max, the elder by 2 minutes, the Baron van Halder. After the twin's father dies, the Baroness takes Max with her to Germany. Each of the brothers has a knack for flying and when the war starts up the both join their respected sides. This wonderfully portrayed novel tells te story of their exploits during the war and is capped off by a very surprising and great ending.
Rating: 
Summary: Higgins magic formula is missing.
Review: The concept of conflict within a family during the war makes for exciting reading. Len Deighton accomplished this with "Winter", the story of two brothers caught in the conflict of war. Higgins got carried away in his book with these two fighter aces, the same tactics where repeated over and over. Seems as the Higgins touch is missing and instead imitation of other authors is there especially the back cover looks a bit like Clive Cussler.
Rating:
Summary: Great
Review: A real page-turner. It's a real adventure--the best thriller since Craig Furnas's THE SHAPE--and kept me up in bed reading it. Nobody can write war suspense like Jack Higgins. Perfect summer reading.
Rating:
Summary: I thought the book was extremely well thought out.
Review: Jack Higgins shows his excellent knowledge of WWII in Europe in this book. It is also written from a very interesting point of view, as well. I totally enjoyed it!
Rating:
Summary: A gripping novel that grabs you by the throat
Review: Jack Higgins characters are likable realistic and at times funny. If you liked Higgins other books you'll love this fast paced thriller. The two brothers [ Harry and Max Kelso] are truly belivable wheather they are flying fighter planes or receiving awards they are wonderfuly crafted. If you liked the Eagle Has Landed you'll love this. I did.
Rating:
Summary: Good book but a little boring...
Review: Liked the book but found it very boring at times. The dogfighting could have been written a bit better, these brothers were suppose to be aces but they use the same moves on everyone. And if they were fighter aces why did they keep flying unarmed planes, and getting shot down? The book just didn't make a big impression on me, it seemed anti-climactic. When the big plot unfolds it is resolved so easily it was a letdown. Overall I wouldn't recommend this book to a friend.
Rating:
Summary: A good World War II yarn about twin brother fighter pilots.
Review: Flight of Eagles, by Jack Higgins,1998, Putnam Pub, New York,Hardcover, 336 pp., $17.47 U.S. (from Amazon.com) "In the early days of World War II, brothers Max and Harry Kelso--born in the U.S. shortly after the first world war to a German war nurse mother and an American fighter ace father--find themselves on opposite sides of the conflict. For it seems that forces much greater than they have set into motion an intrigue so devious, so filled with peril, that it will require that they question everything they know, all that they hold most dear. A new thriller by the author of The President's Daughter." Jack Higgins, who also writes under his real name, Harry Patterson, is a real yarn spinner. Among others, he gave us the 1975 best seller, The Eagle Has Landed. He reminds me of another author whom I knew personally, named R. Wright "Bobby" Campbell, who wrote The Spy Who Sat and Waited. Both men were high school dropouts, with interesting backgrounds. Higgins' background includes the military, circus roustabout, laborer, and truck driver before he went to college and became a teacher and author. Bobby Campbell, who lived in Carmel, California when I knew him, would sit across a restaurant table from you and spin a story. He was a natural-born story-teller, and seemingly couldn't help himself. Another fiction writer of the same ilk was the late Louis L'Amour. He also had a background as a roustabout, truck driver, merchant seaman, prize-fighter and other such jobs, which enabled him to know about life close up and personal. After all, before you can write convincingly, you need some life experience, and the best of them seem to spend years participating in life before they begin to write about it. But I remember asking Bobby Campbell once how much time he had spent in the Orkneys (the islands North of Scotland) in order to write with such authority about the people and their customs, whom he described so well in The Spy Who Sat and Waited.! He laughed, and said he got everything he needed in the way of research from the encyclopedia. That will only work, though, for someone who has lived a lot, and observed people closely in their griefs, sorrows, joys, loves and hates. Fiction is an art form, unlike report writing or editorial writing. Not everyone can do it, and of those who can, not all are equal. Jack Higgins is truly one of the master story-tellers. His protagonists are convincingly drawn, and his plots seem believable even when they are far-fetched. In this one, the Nazis want to assassinate Eisenhower. In The Eagle Has Landed, it was Churchill they were after. This is good fiction. He works in real people, like Bubi Hartmann, the top-scoring German fighter ace of World War II, and Adolph Galland, who was their highest scoring ace in the Battle of Britain, and who eventually became their chief of fighters. The last I heard, both were still alive. Higgins weaves a good tale, and you should enjoy this one.
Rating:
Summary: Thumbs up
Review: Higgins brings his consistent skills to another World War II suspense thriller, that has plenty of action and page-turning plotting. I read plenty of Higgins books as inspiration to write my own WW II thriller novel, but this Higgins was purely for pleasure. -- C.F.
Rating:
Summary: Higgins has done a poor rewrite of The Eagle has Landed.
Review: I love W.W.II thrillers, but each of Jack Higgins' books seems to get progressively sillier. All the men in this one are tall, brave, noble, taciturn, multi-lingual, etc., which is par for the genre, but they also are made to follow a plotline which is preposterous. Most of the action takes place as a kind of respite from having dinners in famous hotels. When not drinking or eating in these well paneled watering holes, they go out to dispatch an enemy or two, each time picking up another medal as if it were a sort of tip. This goes on in a kind of repeating cycle, until, half way through, Higgins seemed to remember he needs a climax and recycles his Eagle Has Landed bit. The first time he did this schtick, it was good; this time it's just a way to get to the end. Shabby. Where's Forsythe when we need him?
| 
