Leading Aircraftwoman Maeve Fitzgerald reporting for duty. I’ve been stationed at RAF Down Ampney in Gloucestershire as a WAAF (Women’s Auxiliary Air Force) nursing orderly for over a year now and am used to how things run round here. But I’ll never get used to the horrific injuries I encounter on a daily basis transporting our lads back home from combat zones in Europe.

I can’t think about that though as I’m preparing for today’s mission. I need to focus.

Inside the metal Nissen hut where I’m billeted with twelve other WAAFs I pull on sheepskin-lined flying boots and don my coarse wool “hairy Mary” RAF-blue short jacket over my shirt and tie. I head to the supply hut where I’m issued two panniers—one filled with medical supplies, oxygen, morphine, and bandages—and the other filled with tea and chocolate. I pick up my Mae West life jacket and parachute and make my way to the runway to board my Dakota.

As I near my plane, I hear someone shout, “Hey, Irish!”

Turning, I see Sally Roberts with her blonde Victory roll and signature red lipstick, waving to me outside her Dakota. “Where are you off to then?” she asked.

“France. You?”

“Belgium.” Sally blew a smoke ring from her cigarette. “Want to go to the dance with me and Betty tonight?”

“Sorry, I’ve got some letters to write.”

“Come on, Maeve; you need to get out and have some fun.”

Sally’s all about fun. The biggest flirt in camp, she never lacks for dance partners and is always asking me to join her for drinks at the canteen or to go to a dance.

But I haven’t danced with anyone since Seamus.

I’m not ready to be in another man’s arms. Not since the death of my fiancé, whom I grew up with in a village outside of Dublin. Seamus hadn’t needed to enlist—Ireland was neutral and no one else in our small village had joined up—but the man I loved said he couldn’t sit back while Hitler and his Nazis bombed the UK and invaded country after country.

“I have to do my part to stop that madman,” Seamus said, “We can’t let evil win.”

When I learned my fiancé had been killed in battle, I promptly joined the RAF, determined to do my bit. I volunteered to become a nursing orderly, or as the newspapers dubbed us “Flying Nightingales,” before being sent over to the blood-soaked beaches of Normandy to bring home the wounded.

Inside the plane I set down my supplies and wedged the tea urn between two boxes. Harry the wireless operator joined me in the Dakota’s cabin, releasing a wolf whistle when he saw me. “Hello, Maeve, want to go to the dance with me tonight?” he asked as the plane’s engines roared to life and we began taxiing down the runway.

“No thanks.” I sat down on a box of supplies. “Sally’s going though so you can take her for a spin around the dance floor.”

Harry grinned and gave me a thumbs up.

As our Dakota flew over the Channel I daydreamed about Seamus and the life we’d planned together. My history-loving husband would teach at the local school and I would become a mum to a houseful of weans.

Flak attacks punctured my domestic daydreams. The plane veered to escape the German gunfire and I fell off the box, landing on the floor as shrapnel pinged inside the cabin.

Death Of A Flying Nightingale, A Nightingale Mystery Book 1
Genre: Historical Mystery
Release: September 2024
Format: Print, Digital
Purchase Link

Three very different young women serve as air ambulance nurses bravely flying into WWII combat zones risking their lives to evacuate the wounded. Irish Maeve joined the RAF after her fiancé was killed; streetwise Etta fled London’s slums in search of a better life, and farm girl Betty enlisted to prevent the wounded from dying like her brother.

Newspapers have given these women a romantic nickname: “The Flying Nightingales.” Not that there’s anything romantic about what they do. The horrific injuries they encounter on a daily basis take their toll, so when one of the Nightingales is found dead, they wonder: Was it an accident? Suicide? Or something else?

After another nursing orderly dies mysteriously, they think: Someone’s killing Nightingales. The friends grapple with their loss all while keeping a stiff upper lip and continuing to care for casualties as they’re being strafed by the Luftwaffe.

Inspired by true events this novel is a tribute to a group of forgotten heroes who kept calm and carried on, while the fighting raged about them.

About the author
Laura Jensen Walker is the award-winning author of more than 20 books including the #1 Amazon bestselling, Agatha-nominated Murder Most Sweet. Flying a typewriter across Europe in the Air Force in her twenties Laura fell in love with all things English at an RAF base in the UK. Captivated by the tales of an overlooked group of WWII RAF women—the Flying Nightingales—she knew she had to tell their story. Death of a Flying Nightingale is Laura’s historical debut. Laura lives in Northern California with her husband and two rescue terriers where she drinks tea and dreams of England.