Close to the Sun follows the lives of fighter pilots during the Second
World War. As a boy, Hank Milroy from Wyoming idealized the gallant
exploits of WWI fighter aces. Karl, Fürst von Pfalz-Teuffelreich,
aspires to surpass his father’s 49 Luftsiegen. Seth Braham falls in love with flying during an air show at San Francisco’s Chrissy Field.
The young men encounter friends, rivals, and exceptional women.
Braxton Mobley, the hotshot, wants to outscore every man in the air
force. Texas tomboy Catherine “Winty” McCabe is as good a flyer as any
man. Princess Maria-Xenia, a stateless White Russian, works for the
Abwehr, German Intelligence. Elfriede Wohlman is a frontline nurse with a dangerous secret. Miriam Keramopoulos is the girl from Brooklyn with a
voice that will take her places.
Once the United States enter the war, Hank, Brax, and Seth
experience the exhilaration of aerial combat and acedom during the
unromantic reality of combat losses, tedious bomber escort, strafing
runs, and the firebombing of entire cities. As one of the hated
aristocrats, Karl is in as much danger from Nazis as he is from enemy
fighter pilots, as he and his colleagues desperately try to stem the
overwhelming tide as the war turns against Germany. Callous political
decisions, disastrous mistakes, and horrific atrocities they witness at
the end of WWII put a dark spin on all their dreams of glory.
