Goodbye Mickey Mouse

As a onetime fighter pilot, I believe the technical accuracy of Deighton's story is unsurpassed. Woven into the story about a wartime romance are a domineering father, an accomplished airborne killer, a sad tart, a vengeful husband and an absolute phony. Couple this story with Leighton's Bomber and the reader will have a feel for aerial warfare over Europe as seen from both sides.

Based on the recommendation of a friend I bought a copy of this book - rather than tell you the plot (and spoil it for you) - the book deals with the tactics (and perils) of the fighter pilots of the 8th AAF - and the book starts out like 12 O'clock High with a nostalgic visit to an abandoned airfield in East Anglia. One is reminded of the horrible causality rate of fliers in that war - the author did a lot of interviews with veterans. In short one gets a good glimpse into the life of a serviceman - in combat and back at base - during those times in WW2. It was a page-turner for me - hard to put down. In reading the of Deighton's other works, I learned that he wrote a fiction called SS-GB - also recommended. I read that years ago about a fictionalized account of the Nazis beating Britain and the accounts of the SS in the UK 20 years later - a good mystery.

In Goodbye Mickey Mouse, Len Deighton has written his best novel yet: a brilliant, multidimensional picture of what it is to be at war ... and what it was to be in love in the England of 1944. One of Deightons earlier and one of his best.

This is a terrific book about life in England during World War II, and some of the men who fought it. We meet the American officers at an Army Air Force fighter base, and learn what life was like for these flying warriors and the women they loved. From the high tension of flying combat missions to the rowdy parties where the men try to forget their fears, we get a glimpse of how the war affected these men and how they tried to cope. The characters are vividly portrayed, and we find much to like and dislike about all of them. In the end, they all show themselves to be falible humans. The ending provided a bit of a surprise, further illustrating the unpredictability of war.

Fifteen years after reading this splendid, poignant story I still choke up thinking about it. Len Deighton is unknown to many readers of even truly good literature -- partly because he took his time to do a craftsmanlike job and therefore didn't turn out a stream of quickies to keep himself constantly on the shelves.I'm a pilot with 11,000 hours of flight time, some in fighters. I finished Goodbye Mickey Mouse convinced that Len Deighton was a WWII fighter pilot. Only a pilot, I thought, could describe to the satisfaction of another pilot the feel of the stick when a plane is approaching a high-speed stall, the feedback a pilot gets when his plane is damaged or a system has failed -- how he goes about trying to nurse the crippled bird home, sometimes successful and sometimes not . . . Then I read his explanation in the back of the book wherein he describes that he read 200 odd books on the subject of flying fighter airplanes in order to be able to write about it with credibility that satisfied himself.Goodbye Mickey Mouse begins with a scene that dislocates your perception of how this story will conclude. At the very end he clears up your misperception in the most moving and satisfying way.This is a story of real airmen, their distinctive personalities laid bare, buddies all, men who must accept the loss of buddy after buddy, but who manage to have some fun in the air and on the ground. There is real romance here, the kind Deighton is noted for -- sensitive for the most part but hilarious at times.A fine read for discriminating readers, exciting, suspenseful, sad and haunting . . .