Target London, By Christy Campbell

After a jittery start, this impressively researched yarn takes off like its deadly subjects: the V1 doodlebug that "allowed… awareness of the imminence of death" and its successor the "unsporting" V2.

Campbell deftly unpicks the tangled story that climaxed in 168 deaths in a Woolworth's in New Cross and 500 in The Hague when the RAF tried to take out the V2 launch site.

Whisked to the US, German rocket genius Werner von Braun was eulogised in the 1958 film I Aim at the Stars, a title amended by comedian Mort Sahl, "but Sometimes I Hit London".