Razor Eyes

by Richard Hough

Mick Boyd attempts to come to terms with his fears of the unknown after joining the RAF as a fighter pilot during World War II

116 pages, Hardcover

First published November 11, 1983

About the author

Richard Alexander Hough was a British author and historian specializing in naval history. As a child, he was obsessed with making model warships and collecting information about navies around the world. In 1941, he joined the Royal Air Force and trained at a flying school near Los Angeles. He flew Hurricanes and Typhoons and was wounded in action.

After World War II, Hough worked as a part-time delivery driver for a wine shop, while looking for employment involving books. He finally joined the publishing house Bodley Head, and then Hamish Hamilton, where he eventually headed the children’s book division.

His work as a publisher inspired him to turn to writing himself in 1950, and he went on to write more than ninety books over a long and successful career. Best-known for his works of naval history and his biographies, he also wrote war novels and books for children (under the pseudonym Bruce Carter), all of which sold in huge numbers around the world. His works include The Longest Battle: The War at Sea 1939-45, Naval Battles of the Twentieth Century and best-selling biographies of Earl Mountbatten of Burma and Captain James Cook. Captain Bligh and Mr Christian, his 1972 account of the mutiny on the Bounty, was the basis of the 1984 film The Bounty, starring Anthony Hopkins and Mel Gibson.

Hough was the official historian of the Mountbatten family and a longtime student of Churchill. Winston Churchill figures prominently in nine of his books, including Former Naval Person: Churchill and the Wars at Sea. He won the Daily Express Best Book of the Sea Award in 1972.

Reviews

[Hunter Cook · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this book is really good I really recommend this book if you like planes and war. The beginning of the story is really slow and I almost stopped reading it but then it started getting better. I like the main character and you sometimes feel really bad for him because of what he had to go through. In this book ww2 is just starting and the main character is from the UK and hes apart of the air force. A sad part is when is friend died. I really do like the book and recommend you to suggest it or read it yourself you will enjoy it. especially if you like war and planes and action.

[Connor Boeve · Rating 1 out of 5]

Razor's eyes, in my opinion, was not a good book It was too slow and skipped over info and brought it back up at confusing times. It was hard to follow and very slow to the point where I lost track of what I was reading it was not very entertaining or action-packed like I thought it would be. It started the first half of the book talking about his friend that has no impact on the book at all and disappears into the army. They constantly go over repeated info to the point you want to stop reading it because of how dull and not entertaining it is. They are both obsessed with planes so they try and join the air force he starts as a trainee and has to fly with instructors. This part of the book I liked least because of the same words they describe on how he flies. All in all, I don't recommend this book unless you are into the air force or ww1. This book is confusing and filled with info It does not use to support the story and is slow and boring at the same time. The plains were my favorite part only because that meant that something was going to happen and not just be sitting around talking to people.

[James Prothero · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some good scenes. More a patchy memoir than a novel. He missed opportunities to detail more interesting scenes.