Book Review: African Sky by Tony Parks, I f you want to discover the importance of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) to the allies in WW2 read this beautifully written book.

I cannot praise African Sky enough ! 

It is well written, intensely thought provoking, and  beautifully plotted to show how precarious things were during the war and how very different things would be now, if the allies had lost. 

African Sky is set in 1940’s Rhodesia where the Allied Flight Training Base was located during WW2.  

Park’s, whilst giving a warm and rich description of Rhodesia's beauty and wildlife also gives an unadulterated description of the way Black Rhodesians were treated and the links between Rhodesian and South African apartheid and the possible consequences ot this for the outcome of the war.

Paul Bryant is the second in command at the Allied Flight Training base. When two of his planes deviate from course resulting in the death of one trainee pilot and the admonishment of another, Bryant is busy investigating why his pilot took a detour and ended up murdered by bushmen.  
Then the sexual murder of a female parachute instructor whose body is found in a Black area puts him under stress as he is reluctant to reveal his intimate relationship with her to Police Officer Pip Lovejoy. 

As the Police investigation into the woman's death progresses Bryant becomes a suspect, however Bryant has discovered something more important which puts the whole base at risk.

I found African Sky interesting because it is so real – the attitudes, the heat, the emotions and the ever present fear of war.  Bryant’s cynicism , as an older experienced pilot, contrasted beautifully to the almost puppyish keenness of his trainees and I was continually aware of Bryant’s disgust that they had to train so many men to replace men already dead- like plugging an unfillable hole.