Nicholas Best

Nicholas Best is the author of two novels, Where were you at Waterloo? and Tennis and the Masai, which was published last month, and of Happy Valley, a study of the English in Kenya.

Flying Colours

Nicholas Best, 17 April 1986

High over the Lambourn Downs, in the dark days of 1943, two American fighter planes collided in mid-air. Even as the wreckage spiralled to earth, a seven-year-old boy was galloping towards the spot on a horse much too fast for him. His father caught up with him just as the boy reined in to have a closer look at something on the ground – the twisted, mangled corpse of one of the pilots. ‘He’s dead,’ said Lester Piggott, without a trace of emotion. No tears, no hysterics, no outward sign of shock. Just a calm assessment of the situation, with no frills, either then or later. In the racing business the professionals show their colours early.’

Nuclear Fiction

D.A.N. Jones, 8 May 1986

Four of these novels are political, not to be taken lightly. Acts of Faith and The Nuclear Age are concerned with the terror offered to us all by the nuclear deterrent. This is a large theme and...

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