Mirage

An excellent story that I couldn't put down. How does James Follet keep writing these masterpieces?I look forward to reading another of his stories.

interesting and well written book based on a real story , worth reading !!!

A good story and a book I found it hard to put down. Israelis struggle against states unfriendly to them and resolve to build up their forces.

First book by James Follet that I’ve read and it’s certainly not going to be the last. It held me such that I played truant on other things I should have been doing, in order to go on reading it.Now I need to research the real historical events, in order to know how much artistic licence JF’s taken.Well written, professional piece of work. Thank you Mr Follet.

I first read this many years ago in paperback, and with that falling apart 'upgraded' to the kindle edition. The story is excellent (although the 'and true' comment on the front cover is a bit of a stretch) and the characters are nicely drawn - overall this is an excellent read.The only reason this isn't five stars is there are a quite a lot of formatting errors in this Kindle edition. Not as bad as some, but there are a number of cases where it takes a second reading to figure out who said what because the lines all blend into one.

This is a totally absorbing, well-written and thrilling account of how the brave and inventive Israelis managed to bypass the political bloody mindedness of De Gaulle and the major powers in the turbulent recent historical period around the late sixties and early seventies. James Follett brilliantly a d authentically relives all the little details of the period too. This book is so good that I was sorry for the story to end .

Thrilling story about a wounded Israeli pilot who changes the Israeli Air Force forever. It is intertwined with the true story of how Israel “liberated” the brand new small attack boats that it had purchased from France but which France subsequently refused to release. Story telling at its best - fantastic!

The story is amazing and really well told. A brilliant thriller and I will look out for more of this author's books. It should have 5 stars but the poor formatting- dialogue run together, no scene breaks, sudden centred text and several spelling mistakes and missing words really brings the score down. A real shame as the author deserves so much better.

After reading German Wouk's "Hope" I was compelled to read " Mirage" for a second time because of its historical significance in Israeli conflicts throughout the years following their Independence.I I remembered lots but learned a LOT more this time!Thank you Mr. Follett

It's written in a very interesting way!

When you reach the end of any Kindle book you are expected, there and then, to award stars for what you have just read. As a rule I will give an enjoyable work of fiction 4 stars. Later, when considering the book's merit further, one sometimes spots a weakness in the story or in the author's general argument.and want to revise.This story starts after The Six Day War when Israel faced a combined attack by forces of neighboring Arab countries which had it been successful would have been the end of that country. In the last moments of the War,the pilot of a Mirage fighter is shot down and suffers serious injury to his foot. He is unfit to fly and is sent to London to work for the National Isreali airline. An intelligent but unconventional American girl is persuaded by a shadowy American figure to discover what he is doing and it just so happens he's trying to find a way of obtaining the drawings for the Mirage fighter currently in service with the Israeli Airforce.Whilst the story is credible you tend to read it as fiction, however well written, because that is what it is, Disbelief is suspended, at least until something arises to change that state of mind. And that did not happen prior to the end. So it got 5 stars for being an enjoyable and exciting read.There was a small resume of events prior to the ending which was a mix of fact and fiction which added further enjoyment and credibilitySo, now that I 've had time to reflect and consider, do I want to mark it as a 4? No,it was a good read and informative about events about which I knew little.Hope you enjoy this excellent story!

There are events which prove the old saying that truth is stranger than fiction. The story of the lengths that Israel went, in the aftermath of the Six-Day War in the 1960s, to obtain plans for the French built Mirage 5 fighter plane following that country’s embargo, is among them. It’s no surprise then that the story found itself fictionalized two decades later by one of the bestselling thriller writers of the time: James Follett.Follett, who had penned thrillers including Dominator with its own subplot involving Israeli politics and intelligence, proved up to the task. Beginning with a page-turning depiction of aerial combat in the Six-Day War, Follett takes readers through fictionalized events beginning nearly twenty years earlier with the country’s founding. From there, Follett takes the now-ground Daniel Kalen Israeli pilot to swinging sixties London and into Europe as he comes up with a plan to get the much-needed plans. Efforts that attract the attention of not only his father (who, unknown to Daniel, is the head of the Mossad) but also the American CIA and a beautiful young American who falls into the former pilot’s orbit.It’s a fine tapestry that Follett pulls together to tell his story. Beyond the thrilling flying sequences and bits of intelligence tradecraft, Follett offers up a richness of period details, from music and fashion to cultural events such as Apollo moon missions bringing the world to a standstill, that add wonderfully to the verisimilitude. All building up to an extended chase sequence across the final quarter of the novel that (while almost certainly the author injecting a hefty dose of creative license into proceedings) brings the novel to a most satisfying conclusion.There is a trade-off for all that, though. The flashback to the late 1940s is a lengthy one, taking up nearly a quarter of the novel’s length, causing literary whiplash after the action packed opening. Not that Follett doesn’t need it to set-up the large cast of characters and connections, but one can’t wonder if it couldn’t have been done in a more concise way. The same is true of the next quarter, as well, which involves another very lengthy set-up to get events established once more in the late 1960s. The second half of the novel picks up considerably, particularly in the final quarter with its extended chase sequence, but it’s something that leaves Mirage feeling oddly lopsided. Also showing the novel’s age (or perhaps that of its author) are a pair of overly graphic torture scenes (including one involving a woman) and an attempted rape that is essentially shrugged off in the next scene which even as a forgiving reader of older thrillers I struggled with accepting.On the bright side, Mirage’s presentation on Kindle was an improvement over Dominator. Not that it was without issues with paragraphs and even lines of dialogue running together, but this was far easier to read. Indeed, of the various Follett novels currently available on Kindle, Mirage would be the one I’d be inclined to recommend both in terms being a good read and its Kindle presentation. Even if I make it with some caveats.

This is a good story, rooted, I believe, in history but expanded for the tale. If you like a bit of intrigue, some aviation derring-do and an easy going page-turner, this could well be for you!