Rating: 4/5
Review:
Another enjoyable episode
I am enjoying the Bandy Papers series. Like the first volume, I found That's Me In
The Middle a bit variable but never less than enjoyable and exceptionally good
in places.
Bandy spends the first half of the book as Top Brass in London,
giving Jack an opportunity for some well aimed potshots at official
incompetence and infighting, treacherous politicians and so on. There is also the usual smattering of pure
farce and Bandy's endearingly hopeless social and romantic escapades. This part is well written and amusing but
nothing that special, I think. It's very
Wodehousian, with some episodes very reminiscent of Sir Roderick Spode and
Edwin the Boy Scout, but it didn't really engage me.
As before, it is when Bandy returns to the fighting, with
Jack's brilliant balance of humour and the terror of war, that the book really
excels. He manages to make the narrative
both funny and exciting, and captures both the chaotic nature of the combat and
its genuine horror. It reminded me a little
in tone of the excellent TV drama The Wipers Times and these passages, making
up most of the second half of the book, had me completely riveted.
Parts of this are quite outstanding - and if you have more
of a taste for farce than I do, you will enjoy all of it very much. I will certainly be reading Volume Three
(It's Me Again), and I can recommend this one.
(I received an ARC via Netgalley.)
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