A HIGHER CALL by Adam Jenkins with Larry Alexander

Narrated by Robertson Dean

.....The Eagles Know Where the Good Air is.....

I have rarely encountered a book with sections so disparate in quality. At first the book is dispassionate; a mere assemblage of biographical anecdotes with all the insight and passion of a High School research paper. Then something happens. The people to whom we have been introduced—and who seem like so many stick figures for all the humanity that had been associated with their early exploits—come vibrantly to life. When the air war heats up for these pilots, the writers suddenly gain empathy for them and the scenes in the air take of the feeling of grand drama. The book continues in this fashion, flip-flopping between lackluster factual accounts and gripping high drama; sometimes it is brilliant and engaging then it degenerates into a description of the sad state of Germany under the Nazi regime. Later it again will become immediate, personal and exciting, and even rises into moments of insight and poignancy. One constant theme of the book is the sense of honor that inhabits the pilots on both sides of the conflict embodied in the statement, “A man must only answer to God and our comrades.”

Robertson Dean is wonderful in this non-fiction account. When the account requires drama Dean pulls out his repertoire of character voices and can hold the tension during the battle scenes masterfully.