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I came to Gimlet having read every Biggles book I could lay my hands on and all of Worrals' wartime adventures. The next thing to try was obviously Gimlet. You will have guessed by now that I am either twelve years old or a completist. To those of a similar persuasion, I can only say that this was an inexpensive way to tick the King of the Commandos off my list, but I won't be pursuing my interest into the realms of the exorbitant rare second-hand market. Why not? Well, I always had the impression that W E Johns was uncomfortable with characters other than officers and gentlemen - discounting a few proto-feminist rants, Worrals could be a bloke - and while, in his his other efforts, this leads merely to pantomime villains, a largely anonymous Smyth and early Ginger's movie speak, with Gimlet two of the heroes come from the lower orders. Now, I don't myself know any Cockney ex-coppers or Canadian trappers, but this pair did not seem to fill that gap. Their 'am I right?' routine, in particular, quickly palled. Gimlet himself always threatens to be a martinet but never does anything worse than order Copper to get his hair cut and Cub is far too gentle for the feral schoolboy we meet in the first yarn. In the context of two wartime and two just-demobbed stories, these characters barely held my interest, and I really don't fancy the Gimlet equivalent of the Special Air Police. I'm glad I tried Gimlet, but I'm moving on now.Read full review
An excellent way to read four novels by W E Johns published during WW2 and shortly after. Full of patriotic imagery and designed to enhance national pride and belief in the morality of the British and French defence from the Nazi invaders. Black and white characterisation of British and German, the good and bad, complete stereotypes with no shades of grey, but an enjoyable read. The stories are entertaining if somewhat lacking credibility, and plot a ' Boys Own' format, exactly as intended for the younger teenage reader of that time This new copy, is very well made with a printed semi hardback cover and page ribbon, 619 pages with period illustrations and an excellent preface. Highly recommended, great value, an interesting diversion for Biggles fans.
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