The Hero Maker (Random House), by Stephen Dando-Collins

The Great Escape may be one of the most renowned stories from World War 2. The book, about the escape of allied prisoners of war through tunnels under a German prisoner of war camp, was famously made into a film starring Hollywood icon Steve McQueen.

Former Australian fighter pilot Paul Brickhill wrote the book – he was a POW at the German prison – as well another book, The

Dam Busters that also made the leap into movie world. This year marks the 100th anniversary of Brickhill’s birth and 25 years since his death.

In Hero Maker, historian, author and biographer Stephen Dando-Collins writes of Brickhill’s extraordinary story – from a youth with a debilitating stutter to Sydney journalist, to Spitfire pilot and POW, to feted author. He was the J. K. Rowling of his time in the sense that he was, around the mid 1950s, the highest-earning author in the UK.