Russell Miller is a prize-winning journalist and the author of eleven previous books. He was born in east London in 1938 and began his career in journalism at the age of sixteen. While under contract to the SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE he won four press awards and was voted Writer of the Year by the Society of British Magazine Editors. His book MAGNUM, on the legendary photo agency, was described by John Simpson as 'the best book on photo-journalism I have ever read', and his oral histories of D-Day, NOTHING LESS THAN VICTORY, and the Special Operations Executive, BEHIND THE LINES, were widely acclaimed. His bestselling authorised biography of Field Marshal Slim of Burma was published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in 2013.

One of the most enjoyable paradoxes of Russell Miller's engaging biography is that, while instinct tells you that Hugh Montague Trenchard - grunting and bellicose, nicknamed 'Boom' on account of his habitual bellowing - must have been an utter horror to deal with, he none the less exerts fascination and occasionally sympathy, too . . . [Trenchard's] early adventures - involving everything from rampaging Boers to poisontipped darts and sabotaged cooking pots containing swarms of furious bees - are pure Flashman . . . Miller's coverage of the role of flight in the First World War is compelling and illuminating . . . Boom gives a magnetic and colourful portrait of the sort of life that could simply never be lived now.

Russell Miller is a prize-winning journalist and the author of eleven previous books. He was born in east London in 1938 and began his career in journalism at the age of sixteen. While under contract to the SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE he won four press awards and was voted Writer of the Year by the Society of British Magazine Editors. His book MAGNUM, on the legendary photo agency, was described by John Simpson as 'the best book on photo-journalism I have ever read', and his oral histories of D-Day, NOTHING LESS THAN VICTORY, and the Special Operations Executive, BEHIND THE LINES, were widely acclaimed. His bestselling authorised biography of Field Marshal Slim of Burma was published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in 2013.

One of the most enjoyable paradoxes of Russell Miller's engaging biography is that, while instinct tells you that Hugh Montague Trenchard - grunting and bellicose, nicknamed 'Boom' on account of his habitual bellowing - must have been an utter horror to deal with, he none the less exerts fascination and occasionally sympathy, too . . . [Trenchard's] early adventures - involving everything from rampaging Boers to poisontipped darts and sabotaged cooking pots containing swarms of furious bees - are pure Flashman . . . Miller's coverage of the role of flight in the First World War is compelling and illuminating . . . Boom gives a magnetic and colourful portrait of the sort of life that could simply never be lived now.