Bless 'Em All

Sarah Waters take note. This is how to write a Blitz novel. In last year's disappointing Night Watch, Waters tried to portray both the drama and the drabness of war-time London and ended up simply writing drably. Saddler successfully interweaves the tales of a collection of lower class Londoners, and their connections - through work, love and lust - with a pair of relatively well-to-do brothers in the book trade. The bombs begin to fall. Some characters end badly, some well and some, literally, soldier on. Saddler has a touch of the Orwells about his pure, clear prose-style, which is particularly effective in painting London itself as a living backdrop to this moving story of a mundane world suddenly run mad.