"The journalist and bestselling popular historian returns with the story of an American soldier who survived Nazi terror...Scrupulous, squirm-inducing...A fast-paced account of a little-known POW experience.” ―Kirkus Reviews

"Clavin paints the horrors of life in the concentration camp in harrowing detail. The details Clavin unearths ... are grimly fascinating." ―Publishers Weekly

"Lightning Down is a wonderful testament to the human spirit, an incredible story of courage and resilience, of one man's heroism both in a cockpit in the skies above Nazi-occupied Europe and in Buchenwald, the dark heart of the Third Reich. Don't miss this nail-biter from a true master, Tom Clavin." ―Alex Kershaw, New York Times bestselling author of The First Wave and The Liberator

"When a quiet American farm boy named Joe fell in love with the Lockheed P-38 Lightning, he had no idea that his dream of becoming a fighter pilot would catapult him into one of the most harrowing stories of World War II. Tom Clavin's Lightning Down whisked me from the rural peace of the Pacific Northwest to aviation heroics on D-Day, from a nightmare prison train to a Nazi concentration camp, from a brutal frozen death march to a German POW camp that pushed thousands of men to the outer edge of human endurance―and beyond. This shocking true tale of a small band of American flyers imprisoned by the Third Reich is at turns horrifying and triumphant, revealing the galvanizing power of battlefield brotherhood and the extraordinary resilience of the human spirit. I began rooting for Joe on Page 1!" ―Lynn Vincent, New York Times bestselling coauthor of Indianapolis: The True Story of the Worst Sea Disaster in U.S. Naval History and the Fifty-Year Fight to Exonerate an Innocent Man

"Buchenwald was the place no allied airman was supposed to wind up―but they did. In this priceless eyewitness history, one of WWII’s most incredible stories has finally found its teller. Lightning Down is a riveting read that will leave you with a cold shiver." ―Adam Makos, author of the NY Times bestseller A Higher Call