Hammond Innes · 1951 · thriller

Hammond Innes's 1951 novel, set during the Berlin Airlift. A pilot on the wrong side of the law goes into partnership with an engineer obsessed with a new aero engine, flying worn-out transports on the Berlin run to finance the work. The engine has been tested on somebody else's aircraft already, and the reason the partner will not talk about Germany becomes the whole story.

1. 1
   Membury

   On a closed wartime airfield in Berkshire, Neil Fraser falls in with Bill Saeton, who is building a revolutionary aero engine in a hangar and needs money faster than any honest business could supply it.

2. 2
   Wunstorf

   The money is on the Berlin airlift, and the partnership takes clapped-out transports out to Wunstorf in the British zone to join the queue - aircraft flown far beyond their hours, on a schedule that leaves no margin for anything.

3. 3
   Gatow

   Into Gatow through the corridor, three minutes apart, in weather nobody would fly in for any other reason - and somewhere in the wreckage of a previous flight lies the answer to where Saeton's engine drawings actually came from.