What makes an air ace? Dramatic vic-

tories, of course, and a high score of

downed enemies. But what forces, public

and private, lead a man down this peril-

ous road to glory?

These are the questions Arch White-

house explores in this new novel of the

flying men and machines of World War I.

His hero is Max Kenyon, the product of a

Newark tenement who worked his way

across the Atlantic in 1914 to fight for his

parents homeland. After surviving the

Battle of Neuve Chappelle, he transferred

to the Royal Flying Corps and, propelled

by natural abilities and war-time exigen-

cies, rose from aerial gunner to testing

pilot to Captain and later Squadron

Leader, downing more than fifty Ger-

mans. He flew everything, from the pon-

derous B.E.2e s to the nimble Sopwith

Snipe. He won decorations from the Mili-

tary Medal to the Victoria Cross. And yet,

he was not a popular hero. His indepen-

dent ways antagonized his superiors as

well as his eolleagues, and his selfish am-

bition cost him the love of more than one

woman. He was a man who had found a

better life in war than he had ever known

in peace, a man who had abandoned the

past for the present and dared nut think

of the future.