Into this cauldron are posted two very different men: Kit Curtis, product of the English upper-class, keen the do the decent thing, to battle with the foe as his forebears might have done in conflicts down the centuries, with chivalry and honour. And Ossie Wolf, pugnacious American non-conformist, bitter survivor of the Spanish Civil War and RAF volunteer, now a fighter pilot ace, driven by the thirst for revenge and the need to kill. In Malta, both pilots come to understand the complexities and contradictions of war, from their comrades, from the Maltese people, from the enemy itself. Meanwhile, the future of Malta, 'the thorn in Rommel's side', an ever-present threat to the supply routes of the Afrika Korps, hangs by the thinnest thread until, through sacrifice and grit, the tide is turned.

From the moment that Kit Curtis flies his Hurricane off an aircraft carrier to land in the beleaguered island during a bombing raid, and once more encounters the ruthless Ossie Wolf, the compelling pace of Band Of Eagles never lets up, passing from one desperate mission to the next, whether it's wheeling dogfights over Valletta, repulsing a gallant but doomed attack on Grand Harbour by the Italian Navy, strafing hostile shipping or being shot down behind enemy lines and embarking on a daring hi-jack plan; the action interspersed with shifts to Britain battered by the Blitz, meeting uncomprehending friends and family; memories of France where, in this author's debut novel, Blue Man Falling, Kit and Ossie survived the Fall of 1940 to fight another day; as well as a telling evocation of Malta itself, its turbulent past and its place in the history of World War Two as the most bombed place on earth.

The climax of Band Of Eagles, a work of fiction woven into real events, sees the island delivered from disaster at the eleventh hour. And in their Spitfires, those RAF pilots who survive, witness its deliverance.