Russell Sullman is the author of four novels. Typhoon Ace was published in 2020 and is the third book in his Harry Rose series. It is the 42nd book I completed reading in 2023.

Opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own! Due to scenes of violence, mature situations, and mature language, I categorize this novel as R. The primary character is RAF Flight Lieutenant Harry ‘Flash’ Rose.

Rose has already served in aerial combat. It is 1942, and he is convinced to leave his desk job and rejoin Excalibur Squadron. He quickly proves his competence and is accepted into the unit.

He quickly adjusts to flying the Hawker Typhoon and takes the battle to the Luftwaffe. He scores hits against the Germans but is himself shot down. All he wants to do is his duty and survive until the end of the war. He misses his family but knows they must remain apart until Germany has been defeated. He just has to suffer through and survive.

He meets a woman who is struggling in her own way to survive the war. Her husband has been been shot down and is severely injured. He is being held in a German POW camp. The two soon find themselves comforting one another. Before long, it turns into a brief affair.

I enjoyed the 9 hours I spent reading this 338-page WWII novel. I like how the author provides technical details about flying the Typhoon and Rose’s dogfighting experiences against the Germans. The chosen cover art is simple, but represents well the focus of the story - flying a Typhoon in combat. I give this novel a rating of 4.4 (rounded to 4) out of 5.

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This is a great third addition to the Harry Rose series. The characters are well developed and the action sequences are great. A good story line with plenty of action. If you are looking for a new series I highly recommend this one!

Thank you to #NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Harry Rose is a pilot based on the south coast of England. He must help protect England from the threat of invasion.
The author certainly knows a thing or two about tactics in the war in the air against the Luftwaffe. This is a tense action thriller that takes the reader right inside the cockpit facing the enemy.
There's plenty of empathy for Rose and his comrades. All of it told with passion and honesty. The action is all very hard-hitting boy's own stuff but back on the ground there is the loneliness and the loss and the need for love even if it is in the arms of a woman who is not your wife.
Splendid stuff.

Typhoon Ace is a story about a little known aspect of WW2, the defence of Southern England from late 1942 to the Summer of 1943.
The novel is seen through the eyes of a battle-hardened RAF pilot, Harry Rose plus, briefly, a Luftwaffe FW190 pilot.
To be honest, I was a bit reticent to continue to finish reading the book after experiencing the initial stereotypical, cliched, old-boy dialogue between the main protagonist and his squadron mates. However, I am delighted that I did persevere because it is an outstanding novel from both the military history perspective as well as depicting the stresses of being a front line pilot.
I admit that the Typhoon is one of my favourite aircraft from WW2 and its vital role in defence and attack is often overlooked by historians and novelists. The battle scenes are very well depicted and vividly portray how it must have felt to fly a Typhoon in aerial combat. I loved the well researched technical details.
Surprisingly, the novel was not purely about flying and portrayed several erotic and emotional scenes that did not detract in any way from the main story..
A slight historical niggle though - the Typhoons were not painted with white stripes on the wings during this period. The 'Invasion' stripes were only added just hours before D-Day in June 1944, to ensure Allied aircraft could easily be identified by comparatively untrained eyes.