For the Children - David Laws

A young British war widow embarks on a dangerous journey that will change her life, and those of countless others, in this gripping, emotional novel by the author of The Fuhrer's Orphans.

Helen Fairfax is a ferry pilot and the mother of Peter, aged six. From Monday to Friday she flies from factories to airfields, then returns to the family farmhouse where her parents look after the boy. She feels torn being away from her son so much, but after her husband died in the Battle of Britain she vowed to live up to his example of courage and strike back at the enemy.

Now the Germans are about to launch the V-2 against London, and MI6 is desperate to get its hands on an undamaged prototype of the rocket to discover how it might be defeated. One has fallen in Poland-and Helen must pilot a secret flight into enemy territory to obtain it, accompanied by Leo Beck who, ashamed of his part in building the rocket, volunteers to assist her.

But after a successful landing, they find themselves pulled into another mission. Parents beg her to fly their kids to safety, far from Nazi squads that have begun kidnapping children. It will mean defying military regulations-but that is far from the only risk she will take when she agrees to this unofficial rescue operation . . .'/