The author is David Doyle who is an American writer on historic military vehicles, aircraft, hardware and warships. He has written over 100 books published by various publishers. He also sells books through his own website. He has published through Schiffer publications on numerous occasions. David Doyle books can be purchased directly from the author!

The books is of the coffee table variety, with many color photographs and color illustrations that are accurately produced. This bodes well for the modeler as a construction reference for many types of kits. Schiffer has produced a series Legends of Warfare Aviation series to cover many World War Two era and jet aircraft types. The format of the current work on the A-26 Invader is broken into introduction and eight chapters. This work is aimed at a more casual and visual reader since its strength lies in its many illustrations and photographs on this airframe. This is a great reference for modelers but this work does not include a lot of history or information on airframe design and evolution.

This book is offered at a great retail price [$24.99] which includes so many high quality color illustrations and I find it to be a bargain photo reference for the Douglas A/B-26. Along with great photos there is a nice breakdown of the production blocks of the various version of the A-26 from prototypes to B-26K Counter Invader, which includes the serial number sequencing of each airframe and the variant and block! There is also some good line drawings illustrating the outline of the fuselage differences of all the variants, which again is very useful to the modeler. The other outstanding quality of this book is the amount and quality of the color photographs in this book, which again serves the modeling community well, especially determining color of particular markings or airframe FS standard colors.

The text is well written and very easy to follow for a basic outline of Douglas A-26’s development and implementation in the air war, on a rudimentary doctrinal and tactical understanding. All eight chapters have a brief introductory text covering the respective subjects:

• Chapter 1: XA-26/XA-26A/XA-26B Series
• Chapter 2: The A-26B
• Chapter 3: The A-26C
• Chapter 4: The XA-26F
• Chapter 5: In the Navy: The JD-1
• Chapter 6: Combat Use in World War II
• Chapter 7: Combat over Korea
• Chapter 8: Vietnam and the Counter Invader

The introductory text provides the reader with the basic information on the topic and may induce further research into the particular topic if the desire should arise. Most casual reader and modelers will find the text more than adequate and will relish in the great illustrations and photographs in this book. However if there is an interest in further information on this airframe, I recommend, Scott Thompson’ Douglas A-26 and B-26 Invader (Crowood Aviation Series) or Periscope Film’s A-26 Invader Pilot's Flight Operating Instruction for a more thorough history and technical breakdown of the evolution of the Douglas A/B-26 Invader family. This is a welcome addition to my library and I consider this book to be the one of the best illustrative histories of the A/B-26 Invader!

My thanks to David Doyle and IPMS/USA for the chance to review this great book.

Highly recommended!