Trial and Tribulation: A Novel of World War II

It is 1943. In the skies above war-torn Europe a savage battle continues as Allied bomber crews rain down fire and destruction on Hitler’s cities and Luftwaffe fighters tear the bombers to pieces. Faced with the destruction, Churchill asks, “Are we barbarians?”

Back in England, after the Siege of Malta and continents away from her estranged husband, fighter pilot Johnnie Shaux, strategic military analyst Eleanor Shaux is ordered to develop plans for the systematic destruction of Hitler’s wartime economy. To do so, she must navigate the quicksand of Allied politics and face the relentless male chauvinism of the bureaucratic and military establishments on both sides of the Atlantic—not to mention battling with the qualms of her own conscience.

Meanwhile, decorated air combat hero Johnnie Shaux is at work developing ways to make Allied bombing more effective. He’s a survivor in a war in which very few survive, where casualty rates are sixty percent, and the only rule is “kill or be killed.” But he is finding it harder to view enemy soldiers as worthy of killing. When Eleanor discovers that Johnnie is back in England and is flying one last horribly dangerous mission—a mission she recommended—she rushes to await him. Will he survive? If he dies, can she live with her complicity in developing the mission he flew?

In the fourth book of the award-winning Breaking Point series, John Rhodes weaves the fictional story of fighter pilot Johnnie Shaux and military strategist Eleanor Shaux into the heartbreaking, inspiring historical fabric of World War II.