Means of Escape

by Spencer Dunmore

Here is a rare combination of unrelenting suspense and ironic humor, in a fast-paced adventure of a downed English airman and a renegade Wehrmacht officer forced to make common cause in attempting escape from Hitler's collapsing empire.They were an unlikely pair - cockney flight engineer Ron Pollard, shot down behind enemy lines, and the German aristocrat Colonel Carl von Eisner, fleeing the Gestapo after an abortive attempt on his Führer's life. Poles apart in class and temperament, but both bent on escape, they undertake an uneasy masquerade - ridiculous but for the mortal dangers involved - with brash commoner Pollard in the patrician garb of an RAF officer, and Eisner, the sophisticated Aryan, in the Londoner's enlisted man's khaki; a masquerade that must fool murderously patriotic Germans, both soldier and civilian. But a courage Pollard never knew he had, Eisner's cool ingenuity, and a growing mutual regard serve them well, and when they come upon a lightly guarded German Messerschmitt, they are ready for a startling escape attempt in which the life of each is in the hands of the other.Spencer Dunmore has combined an intriguing anatomy of friendship forged in desperation with a high-tension tale of World War II.About the Spencer Dunmore was a schoolboy in Yorkshire, England during World War II and watched bombers limping home to the RAF airfields there. His imagination was fired by this experience to the extent that he became an expert on the war in the air, 1939-1945, and his accounts of the bombers and fighters involved are renowned for their accuracy. Dunmore left Britain for Canada in the mid-50s where he was an advertising executive for many years. Dunmore is now a full-time writer and a private pilot on weekends and resides in Ontario.

Genres: Fiction

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1978

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

pretty massively misogynistic, and i am not at all a fan of war stories, but the premise was interesting and it was well written enough to keep me reading until the end. final review: eh

[Chris Tschirhart · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great adventure novel following a very common airman who is thrown out of a shot down Lancaster bomber and the nail biting means of escape that ensue.