Naval Officer Ottokar Prohaska has been seconded to the Austro-Hungarian Air Force (k.u.k. Fleigertruppe) to avoid embarrassing questions about whether the Italian submarine he received the Knight’s Cross of Maria Teresa for sinking was actually a German U-boat operating in the Adriatic - and one with his brother-in-law on board, at that. He finds himself operating out of a dubious airfield on the dubious Italian front, commanded by a dubious officer who has never actually flown in an airplane.

This novel has a darker feel than the earlier ones in the series. There are still flashes of the humor and humanity that distinguishes the previous books, but the Italian front in WWI was hell, and there is no way to civilize it. Prohaska finds himself flying as an observer in a Hansa-Brandenburg C1 biplane, piloted by Hungarian ex-monk Zoltan Toth, with whom he must communicate in Latin because that’s their only common language. Their unit conducts ineffectual bombing raids because the statistics-obsessed commanding officer insists on judging success by number of bombs dropped and therefore loads the missions with the smallest bombs available. The author, John Biggins, once again draws on actual events - Prohaska encounters Italian ace Oreste di Carraciolo, clearly based on the real Gabriele D'Annunzio.

The Austro-Hungarian empire is a fascinating place - how could a state that was so incompetent in technical matters turn out Strauss and Strauss and Strauss and Lehar and Liszt and Rilke and Meitner and Klimt and Frisch and Musil and Bartok and hundreds of other composers and authors and painters and scientists? ( )

I just love this book the most out of the 4 book series. I tend to read it once a year. ( )