The heroic pigeon

Many novels have been written about World War II heroes. In The Long Flight Home (2019), Alan Hlad's first novel, that hero is a pigeon.

In the autumn of 1940, German planes bomb London and other British targets nightly, and a Nazi invasion is expected at any time. The British look for anything that might give them an advantage, and somebody thinks of homing pigeons. The National Pigeon Service quickly organizes and enlists pigeon owners throughout the nation.

Among these are Bertie Shepherd and his granddaughter Susan, who own some of the best racing pigeons in England. Yet Bertie's age and infirmities make his participation difficult, so Susan takes over the operation. The plan calls for dropping pigeons into France in hopes that members of the French Resistance will find them and and use them to send messages about German activities back to England. (Instead, most of the pigeons are eaten by hungry Frenchmen.)

Meanwhile an American pilot named Ollie Evans suddenly loses both his parents and their farm and decides to go to England to try to join the Royal Air Force. But after he assaults an RAF officer he sees offending Susan, he winds up helping her with the pigeon project as an alternative to prison. They quickly fall in love.

The hero pigeon is Susan's pet, Duchess, not actually part of the pigeon drop. Yet through a comedy of errors both Duchess and Ollie, not to mention the RAF officer Ollie struck, find themselves on the same plane that's shot down over France.

Homing pigeons normally fly in just one direction — toward home — yet Duchess has two homes — with Susan and with Ollie — and thus carries messages back and forth between the two lovers.

Hlad keeps the tension high as Ollie and the British officer, both injured in the crash, elude Germans in their struggle to find a way back to England. The bittersweet ending may not be the one readers hope for, but it is one they will remember.