The author drew upon his own military experience in his energetic rumbuctious novels 'Virgin Soldiers' and 'Onward Virgin Soldiers'. In those novels there was a strong autobiographical element and the parallels with H.H.Kirst's 'Gunner Asch' series are striking. They share the theme of the sane 'outsider' on the inside of a dysfunctional system (the military). In 'Orange Wednesday' the square peg in a round hole soldier is again the centre piece, but the dysfunctional world has grown to include great power politics and espionage in a divided post war Germany. Thomas's affection for the German landscape and people, and his well grounded portrait of the officer-protagonist make this a much better than average spy story. ( )