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Author

Iain Gale

13 fiction

Iain Gale is a British novelist, journalist and art critic, born in London in 1959. Before turning to historical fiction he established a career writing about art and culture, served as a judge for major art and literary prizes, and played a role in the development of the Edinburgh Art Festival. His background as an art historian and critic informs the visual detail of his fiction, but his historical novels are principally concerned with soldiers, command and the pressures of battle. He began publishing historical fiction in the mid-2000s and has since concentrated largely on eighteenth-, nineteenth- and twentieth-century warfare.

Gale’s best-known series include the Jack Steel novels—Man of Honour, Rules of War and Brothers in Arms—set during the War of the Spanish Succession, and the four-book James Keane sequence, beginning with Keane’s Company, which follows a British officer through the Napoleonic Wars. He also wrote the two Peter Lamb novels, Black Jackals and Jackals’ Revenge, set during the Second World War. His standalone historical novels include Four Days in June, centred on Waterloo, Alamein, about the North African campaign, and Zero Hour, set during the First World War. Across these books Gale tends to reconstruct major battles through the experiences of individual officers and soldiers, combining tactical detail with the confusion, violence and divided loyalties of military life.

Periods and events

Battle of France and Dunkirk EvacuationMay–June 1940 CE Battle of the Somme1916 CE Battle of Waterloo1815-06-18 Napoleonic Era1792–1815 CE Peninsular War1807–1814 CE Second Battle of El Alamein1942 CE War of the Spanish Succession1701–1714 CE

Historical fiction

Historical fiction series by Iain Gale (3 series)

Keane in Order

by Iain Gale 4 books 4.1(4,737)

The Keane novels follow Captain James Keane of the 27th Foot, an unconventional officer recruited by Wellington to lead a small company of scouts, intelligence gatherers and useful misfits. Beginning in the Peninsular War in 1809, Keane operates beyond the normal security of the regiment, mapping roads, negotiating…

Jack Steel in Order

by Iain Gale 3 books 4.1(1,356)

The Jack Steel novels follow a British grenadier officer through the great continental campaigns of the War of the Spanish Succession. Beginning in Bavaria in 1704, Steel serves under John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, and rises through an army in which courage in battle is inseparable from patronage,…

Peter Lamb in Order

by Iain Gale 2 books 4.1(605)

The Peter Lamb novels follow a British officer and his small unit through two of the most disordered Allied campaigns of the early Second World War. The Black Jackals begins during the collapse of France in 1940, where retreat, civilian casualties and broken communications force Lamb to make…

Historical fiction

Standalone historical fiction by Iain Gale (4 books)

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