Looking for a good read? Here is a recommendation. I have an unusual approach to reviewing books. I review books I feel merit a review. Each review is an opportunity to recommend a book. If I do not think a book is worth reading, I find another book to review. You do not have to agree with everything every author has written (I do not), but the fiction I review is entertaining (and often thought-provoking) and the non-fiction contain ideas worth reading.
Book Review
Two Lovers in Wartime
Reviewed by Mark Lardas
December 22, 2024
Dangers and Difficulties: A Novel of World War II,” by John Rhodes, Roundel House, December 2024, 306 pages, $16.95 (paperback), $4.99 (e-book)
Johnnie Shaux, a pilot in the RAF during World War II, flies Spitfires and Mosquitoes. His wife Eleanor, an analysist at Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF), is a senior planner working with Eisenhower.
In “Dangers and Difficulties: A Novel of World War II,” by John Rhodes they work together yet separately to defeat Hitler. This book opens in spring 1944. Overlord, the invasion of France at Normandy, is at hand.
Jonnie is in a new role. He is going to serve as ground controller for airstrikes. Using fliers to coordinate ground support is an experiment Johnnie advocated. He is heading to Sword Beach on a landing craft with a radioman.
Eleanor is at SHAEF headquarters. Her specialty is games theory, calculating the odds of the invasions success. Her predictions guide Eisenhower on when to start Overlord. She is a WAAF air commandant, the equivalent to a brigadier.
Both end up sidetracked from their primary roles. Johnnie’s radio fails to work, so he ends up operating an antitank rocket launcher, attacking German fortifications on D-Day. Rather than running numbers and odds Eleanor ends up babysitting Churchill, to keep him out of Eisenhower’s way. Yet both contribute to victory on D-Day through their efforts.
The book follows the pair through World War II in Europe from D-Day to the Battle of the Bulge. It focuses on crisis points, the V-1 and V-2 attacks, Operation Market Garden, and the German Ardennes Offensive. It highlights these by showing Johnnie at the sharp end doing the fighting and Eleanor within the ranks of the high-level planners. The combination gives modern readers a three-dimensional view of the war in Europe, simultaneously providing a view of the high-level uncertainties in war with the close up view of men in combat.
“Difficulties and Dangers” is as much a love story as a war story, and stronger for that. Both Johnnie and Eleanor are loners, with strong personalities. They come from vastly different backgrounds, Eleanor from England’s gentry class and Johnnie an impoverished orphan. Despite the need for independence of both, their need for each other is still stronger. It shows the compromises each accepts to make the relationship work.
The fourth book in a series, “Difficulties and Dangers” works well stand-alone, without having read the early works. Although possessing a few anachronisms and errors, it is well-written and entertaining. You cannot ask more from a novel.
Mark Lardas, an engineer, freelance writer, historian, and model-maker, lives in League City. His website is marklardas.com.
