April Novel Essential Information

Novel Title: Taken

Time Setting: 1945

Genre: Historical Thriller

Minimum Word Goal: 120,000

Timespan: September–December

Location: Los Angeles, California

Main Character: Mitchell Becker

Background Information:

Born the third-youngest of nine children in a Texan farm family, Mitchell's childhood was difficult, as the land his father farmed — like much land during the Great Depression — wasn't able to produce much.

Like his siblings, Mitchell worked hard from an early age to help, only going to school when he could be spared. When he was twelve he left school for good to get a job at a different farm to help bring money in until his father finally decided to give up farming two years later.

Instead, his father decided to seek work in the oilfield business, and as soon as he could, Mitchell joined him, as there was more money there than in any farming jobs, and he wanted to save up as much money as possible.

This money he hoped to put toward flying lessons, as — like many a child of the era — his first sighting of an airplane had transfixed him, and he had become intent to become one of the pioneering heroes of the air.

When he was seventeen he was finally able to ride in a plane for the first time; to his joy, he found flying to be all that he had ever imagined it could be — if not even more — and the desire to become a pilot became even stronger.

As soon as he turned eighteen he left his position in the oilfield and enlisted in the Army Air Force, which he figured was the best way to get flying lessons — after all, he would be getting paid to take them, instead of having to be the one paying out money.

He proved to be a natural at flying, as well as at aircraft mechanics — the latter partly aided by his experience in auto mechanics from the farm and oilfield work — in fact, he was so good at both that his superiors were tempted to keep him as an aircraft mechanic.

War broke out within a year of his enlistment and — thanks to some daring aerobatics in order to save his own life that included an emergency landing without landing gear in the middle of a town before his unit's departure to England — he was allowed to remain a pilot.

Throughout the war he proved to be an adept fighter pilot and was, for skill, valour, and value, promoted several times over the course of the conflict.

On the ground he became close friends with another pilot who hailed from Georgia, along with spending time with a wide variety of British women, in British pubs, and otherwise completely forsaking the Christian morals his parents had taught him as a boy.

When Germany surrendered he was sad to leave England for Japan, where he was disappointed to not go on a single flight before the Pacific Theatre closed with the Japanese surrender.

Shortly before the Japanese surrendered, however, his Georgian friend died mysteriously, which tempered his happiness that the end of the war had come; but he didn't have time to dwell on it, as he received word that he was to head home with a handful of other officers — and the body of his friend, which was being sent back to his friend's family at their request.

Why he's heading home so early he's not sure, but he hopes part of it can involve accompanying his friend's body to Georgia and attending the funeral, if not even getting some more information and clarity on what exactly happened to cause his friend's demise.