We were given copies of this book for our book group . I would not otherwise have picked it up . However , once I started reading I couldn’t put it down and read from cover to cover in 2days . Robert Harris manages to balance cause and effect across both sides in the race between a) the increasingly desperate SS who wanted to develop the weapon to pull themselves back from the brink of losing the war ,and b) the British who wanted to put an end to further death and destruction . We see things from the point of view of the scientists who really just wanted to develop their rocket and develop space travel ,and from the WAAFs with their sharpened pencils working through the calculations against the clock . Oh , yes , and there is a side order of the eternal love triangle . I will be looking for other books by Robert Harris , I think I have been missing something .

I enjoyed this book such a lot. Set in WW2, the story centres on the V2 missile - rocket science at its most advanced at the time. The story is shared between two central characters - Kay, a WAAF officer who finds herself in Belgium doing algebraic equations to calculate the launch sites of the V2; and Graf, a V2 rocket engineer who's responsible for the launching of the weapons from the Netherlands to London. Although fiction, the story is close to history, with the character of Kay having been created after Robert Harris read an obituary of a WAAF officer who had done just these activities - I love it when books link themselves to reality in this way. This book is not in any way technical, the characters are key and thoroughly engaging.

Robert Harris returns to the familiar ground of the Second World War after Munich and Enigma, and of course his first novel Fatherland. This novel focuses on the terror of the V2 rockets that struck without warning and caused local devastation. The novel is a return to form for Harris, after a bit of self-indulgence in the Second Sleep, which never really worked and had an unconvincing premise underpinning it. He has mastered the technical details, but brings the period to life without it seeming forced. The central characters are well drawn, their stories bringing them inexorably together as the novel progresses. There is tension in the air and excitement. This was a lockdown novel and this may partly explain its internal coherence, written quickly with few other distractions. There ae also some surprises along the way. I enjoyed it and was sorry when it ended.

Victory is close. Vengeance is closer. Robert Harris has always been great at historical thrillers and V2 continues his fine form. The arms race of World War 2 focuses on the individual struggles in Britain and Germany. It is compelling throughout, the characters are very well rounded and the subject matter is fascinating.

The story opens with an evocative wartime togetherness of people realising that they were not safe at all, and then proceeds to say why. Then it follows how the why meets it's fate at the hands of the RAF. Harris's narrative flows well and holds interest, As in the historically tracked Fatherland. A good read my