Cassada - Tapa blanda

A former enlisted man fresh out of flying school, Lieutenant Cassada is the latest arrival in a complacent Air Force squadron in Cold War Germany. From the outset, several characteristics alienate Cassada from the tightly-knit group of men he joins: his mysterious reticence, his Puerto Rican birth, and - most damning of all - his unabashed ambition. In the absence of warfare, Cassada struggles to prove his superiority as a pilot on routine flying procedures, one of which leads to the central tragedy of the novel. Brilliantly paced and haunting, the novel explores the tensions in a group of fighter pilots as much in conflict with themselves as with the enemy.

James Salter was born in 1926 and grew up in New York City. He graduated from West Point in 1945 and began a twelve-year stint in the U.S. Air Force, much of it as a fighter pilot. It was while assigned to air squadrons in Europe that he began writing. Following the publication of his first novel in 1956, Salter resigned from the armed forces. With the publication of his second novel in 1961, his reputation as an author was established.