November 1933 - Purple Aces
In the second issue of G-8 our heroes go up against the mysterious Purple Aces, a squadron of pilots that have turned against their homeland and will fight to the death with no fear for their own lives.
The novel takes G-8 deep into German folklore to uncover the secrets of the purple staffel. Once again G-8 is fighting a bizarre menace, once again a mad genius is fighting for the Kaiser to defeat the allies and conquer Europe.
The story begins with a pilot crashing a Fokker into an allied airfield. The pilot is pulled from the wreckage, still alive, but with a purple spade on his forehead. The purple spreads, covering his entire face and the pilot expires after giving a warning. The Germans are coming to bomb the airbase. The Purple Aces are coming and will gladly die to complete their mission. Just as the pilot is going to give the location of the Purple Aces airfield, he expires.
G-8 is brought in to solve the mystery of the purple faces. It's another great yarn from Robert J. Hogan. I really like these books. I'm glad I have a few more of the Vintage New Media reprints. They also have selected issues available as PDFs. For this review I read my Berkley paperback dated May 1970.
Once again I would like to thank Bill Mann for compiling his awesome G-8 and his Battle Aces Cover Gallery. Bill also publishes a nice line of Air War pulp reprints under his Age of Aces Books imprint.
The paperback cover is by Jim Steranko and the Pulp cover is, of course, by Frederick Blakeslee, who did all the pulp covers.
© 2009 W. Peter Miller
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