The author is Senior Lecturer in Historical Studies, University of Southampton New College, who admits to a professional interest in the Labour party. Indeed the two central chapters of the book which cover Mannock's service on the Western Front, propose that he applied a socialist perspective to the destruction of enemy aircraft. Unfortunately, the author was unable to find any documents about Mannock's pre war life with the Eyles', who were his surrogate parents, or the Wellingborough Labour party, which was their home, so has interpolated that he was a socialist, because all his nearest and dearest were. It would have given the author's case more validity if he had mentioned at all the well known spat between Mannock and Neville Chamberlain when the latter was Lord Mayor of Birmingham. He has the usual digs at the useless public school boys compared to the gritty likes of Mannock and McCudden. Lanoe Hawker was the former and pretty effective. He mocks the other biographies because they were written 20 years after the events. Most of the literature of World War One came out in the Thirties - perhaps it took that long for people to settle down to normality. Interestingly, he questions whether Mannock only had sight in one eye or not, on the grounds that no one could shoot that accurately with monocular vision. And finally there is an interesting discussion about the whereabouts of Mannock's grave, which is a popular successor to the Lt John Kipling debate. Of the book's 211 pages, 49 are taken up with copious notes and an index. Apart from a frontispiece there are no pictures. This is a slightly different approach to the subject who was a wonderful fighting man and leader.