The outcome of World War II hangs, as Churchill says, by “a slender thread.” Erwin Rommel, Hitler’s “Desert Fox,” is poised to defeat the reeling British army in Egypt and thwart America’s first operation in Europe. Only the tiny, embattled, half-starved Mediterranean island of Malta stands in Rommel’s way. John Rhodes weaves the fictional story of fighter pilot Johnnie Shaux and military strategist Eleanor Rand into the heartbreaking, inspiring historical fabric of World War II.