Skip to main content Skip to search Skip to search

Fiction Literary

The Land Mine

by (author) Eric Wright

Publisher
Cormorant Books
Initial publish date
May 2016
Category
Literary, Historical, Coming of Age, War & Military
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781770864610
    Publish Date
    May 2016
    List Price
    $9.99

Classroom Resources

Where to buy it

Out of print

This edition is not currently available in bookstores. Check your local library or search for used copies at Abebooks.

Description

London, 1943. Despite the deployment of his father to North Africa, the near constant threat of Nazi air raids, and the day-to-day hardships caused by rationing, thirteen-year-old Derek has managed to withstand the worst of World War II more or less unscathed.

 

The war finally hits home, literally, when a German “land mine” destroys the roof of their house, and Derek and his mother are forced to live with his grandparents. Then Derek discovers that his backyard air raid shelter has been taken over by a suspicious man who claims to be a British double agent. The visitor’s true identity and intentions prove to be an irresistible mystery to the schoolboy and his friends.

About the author

Best known as a writer of award-winning detective fiction, including the Charlie Salter mysteries, Eric Wright has also written a comic novel (Moodies Tale) and Always Give a Penny to a Blind Man, his 1999 memoir which was nominated for the Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction. (The first chapter of that memoir first appeared in The New Yorker.) Eric helped to set up and was the first director of the publishing program at Ryerson University. He lives in Toronto.

Eric Wright's profile page

Editorial Reviews

“It is unabashedly autobiographical … when I read the final paragraph I couldn’t help but think Eric was writing about himself, and the experience we have as we grow older, of trying to connect with our past even though the reality of the present impedes us. I found it very moving and I’m glad he was still doing what he loved.”

Maureen Jennings, author of the Detective Murdoch series