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  • Published: 3 October 2014
  • ISBN: 9781775530756
  • Imprint: RHNZ Children’s ebooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 208

Red Leader Down



YA thriller about a teen discovering the truth of his grandfather's terrible past as a World War Two fighter pilot.

YA thriller about a teen discovering the truth of his grandfather's terrible past as a World War Two fighter pilot.

When 17-year-old Matt dreams that he is a World War Two pilot in a dogfight against the Germans, something strange happens. Was it a dream? Because later that morning, the family gets news that Grandad died at exactly that time, 3.15 a.m.

This is the beginning of a bewildering set of adventures, into which Matt is plunged. At Grandad's funeral, two of his old squadron mates turn up and he becomes aware that something that happened in the last days of the war, to do with the death of his Squadron Leader, Jingo Brook.

After the funeral, Grandad's house is trashed. With the help of a local 'bad boy' Matt discovers who did it and what was taken — his grandad's log books and journal from World War Two.

The second part of the novel is Grandad's story, told in the first person, when he was a little older than Matt. He joins a Tempest ground-attack fighter squadron, operating in Germany, in the last months of the war.

Matt, financed by his grandad's estate, goes to Europe and, on the banks of a northern Holland canal finds the evidence that clears his grandfather's name. Now the skies above are blue and quiet but he has won his Grandad's last victory.

  • Published: 3 October 2014
  • ISBN: 9781775530756
  • Imprint: RHNZ Children’s ebooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 208

About the author

Ken Catran

Ken Catran is an award-winning children’s writer of over 30 acclaimed novels for young adults, as well as having been a highly successful television scriptwriter. His books for young adults engage with the historical, the fantastical, and science fiction.

He has been shortlisted many times in the New Zealand Post Book Awards and won Book of the Year in 2001. In 2004 he won the Esther Glen Award for his distinguished contribution to literature at the LIANZA Children's Book Awards.

He has been the Waikato University Writer in Residence and was the 2007 winner of the New Zealand's most prestigious award for children's writers, the Storylines Margaret Mahy Medal. The award is given annually by the Storylines Children's Literature Charitable Trust to acknowledge a distinguished contribution to New Zealand children's literature.

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Awards & recognition

Storylines Notable Young Adult Fiction Award

Awarded  •  2007  •  Storylines Notable Young Adult Fiction