That Quiet Earth: A First World War Tale

George Bridge has a secret, a wrong he did a lifetime ago that he must confess. Back in the summer and autumn of 1918 he lived life at a pitch he never experienced again; any moment could have been his last. He was a pilot in the RAF.

Day after day, George and his friend Billy Love fight for their lives. Just nineteen, they have everything to live for, but flying three miles above France, its kill or be killed and machine guns, Fokkers and a long burning fall haunt their dreams.

At home their families wait; and so do their girls. Billy loves Jessica. Constance loves George. But who does George love?

Then Billy flies into history and nothing is ever the same again.

That Quiet Earth is rich in the kind of 'boys own' descriptions of combat that characterize this kind of fiction, but underlying the novel is an astute study of madness; the insanity of the war itself and the personal decline of tormented young Billy Love.