The story of the lone British spy who has remained uncaptured in the Netherlands. He has all of the German troop positions but is trapped behind enemy lines. Large passages of the book drop into strategy meetings for Operation Market Garden, which was the Allied troops offensive to recover the Netherlands. I found these passages extremely hard to follow without a map in front of me throughout the extremely long explanations.

The art is functional but the coloring was dark and muddy making it difficult to discern characters.

'The Flutist of Arnhem' with story and art by Antonio Gil is a graphic novel that tells the story of Operation Market Garden, a failed Allied offensive in WWII.

John Hewson, a.k.a. 'Boekman' is a British SOE agent in Holland with important information. The S.S. knows he is still alive, but not where. Nearby, a troop of British soldiers is trying to stop Germany from blowing up all the bridges around Arnhem. A group is sent to try to rescue John, but he doesn't know that one of the soldiers is the son he left behind to join the SOE.

There is probably a better story here, but it feels overly ponderous. There is a lot of narrative to get through and the framing story seems implausible based on the events that it involves. The art is a bit heavyhanded as well.

I received a review copy of this graphic novel from Naval Institute Press and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.

John Hewson has important documents about the German army, he is a dangerous agent and he is still alive.

The story takes place during Operation Market Garden, when British paratroopers have landed in Holland. John's son Harry, who was one of them, tried to find his father...

I have never read graphic novels before reading this one, so this book is a new in the genre for me. I enjoyed reading The Flutist of Arnhem and would highly recommend it to everyone who is interested in the History of WW2.

Thank you very much, Antonio Gil, Naval Institute Press and NetGalley for the opportunity to read advanced ARC.

I am not ordinarily a fan of graphic novels, but I am a fan of historical fiction, especially WWII. I am familiar with Operation Market Garden and found Antonio Gil’s novel fascinating. The story centers around John Hewson and his son Harry. John is a British agent with vital information who is being hunted by the Germans. Harry is part of the British forces involved in Market Garden. He has not seen his father in ten years, but he is given the assignment of finding him and getting him to safety.

As Harry searches for John along with an experienced officer and a Polish soldier fluent in German, the war rages around them. Gil supplements his story with maps and plans of the operation, stories of some of the men involved and scenes from the key battles. The artwork is sometimes dark but beautifully done. If you are interested in WWII, The Flutist of Arnhem comes highly recommended. I would like to thank NetGalley and the Naval Institute Press or providing this book for my review.

I really appreciated where this story went. I’m very picky with graphic novels but this one was very well illustrated. I liked the story and the characters. My only problem was that there were moments when I really wanted more to happen and where I wanted a different outcome. I still enjoyed it!

Great story about the Market Garden fiasco in WWII. Here, parents went to fight with the resistance while son stayed behind and joined the British commandos. Fast paced action. Artwork was outstanding; realistic yet captures the emotional intensity of the scene. Highly recommend this graphic novel.

Thanks NetGalley and Navel Institute Press for a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair review.

An interesting format used to write a fictional story about an historical event. The author has not evolved from the "tell" technique commonly used by the novice writer into the ability to "show" the reader the story as a more experienced author would do. The use of the telling technique in combination with the graphic comic concept was exceptionally redundant.

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for providing an advanced reader copy of this book. The impressions expressed here are my own honest opinions written voluntarily.

Harry Hewson finally picks up his flute and plays, triggering memories of his father and his own involvement in the SOE and Operation Market Garden. The flute that Harry found at Arnhem was the key to finding his dad during the battle and to bring himself back to the present. A very nicely down story embedded in a larger battle. The artwork was also quite fitting. A very good tale!

Thanks Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book.

Author/Illustrator Antonio Gil published the graphic novel “The Flutist of Arnhem: A Story of Operation Market Garden” in 2021 (May). Mr. Gil is a Spanish illustrator and comic author who specializes in military history. He has several publications to his credit.

I categorize this novel as ‘R’ because it contains scenes of violence and mature language. The story is set in WWII during Operation Market Garden. The principal character is British paratrooper Harry Hewson. John Newson, Harry’s estranged father, has been operating for years in Holland as an SOE agent. The Germans have captured or killed most of the agents in Holland. John has survived and has important information for the Allies.

Harry Hewson has landed with the British paratroopers in Holland. When the British authorities discover John has survived and has information a group is quickly formed to find him and get him home. Harry is drafted into the group. The graphic novel details their search for John Hewson.

I enjoyed the 2 hours I spent reading this 152-page graphic novel. I don’t read many graphic novels, I did enjoy this one though. It contains many facts about the battle as well as the fictional dramatization. I liked the images, though some were dark and hard to see. I do like the selected cover art. I give this graphic novel a 4.4 (rounded down to a 4) out of 5.

You can access more of my book reviews on my Blog ( https://johnpurvis.wordpress.com/blog/).

My book reviews are also published on Goodreads (https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/31181778-john-purvis).

A WW2 story telling the movements of several characters during Operation Market Garden in the Netherlands. We switch between perspectives, and there is a focus on strategy, which can sometimes get a bit wordy and complicated.

The main story of the eponymous flutist is a British soldier who communicates his presence to his secret agent father by playing a ditty on a flute, a ditty that said father learned him as a child.

As far as I understand it, this particular story is fictional, and that kind of baffles me. If there is one thing that consistently impresses me about huge historical subjects like WW2, is that there is always more to learn, there are always unique new stories to be told. Why invent a story, when there must be enough real stories to tell?

The art is workmanlike - it tells the story, but isn't particularly good. The colouring specifically looks dark and muddy.

I have to start this review of with saying that my dad lives opposite Hartenstein, which served as the British headquarters during this operation. The Husband and I have joined in with the Airborne commemoration walk (the largest one-day hiking event in the world) several times now. So we are familiar with the area and somewhat with the story. So when we saw this graphic novel on Netgalley we were very excited to see something fairly close to us, and decided to request it for a buddyread.





So you will understand our disappointment when this novel turned out to not be that good. Well, not good at all, to be honest.

I didn’t have a good time with it at all, and found it quite a chore to get through. There are some errors in there that can be edited out, sure. The maps were incorrect, as were the Dutch translations. I cannot speak for the accuracy of the Polish… but I am rather confused as to why these languages were incorporated (which is great) but the author didn’t bother with German.

Something else that bothered me that some of the pages had Way too much text on them. I understand it would be difficult to explain the operation succinctly, but still… this was just too much.




The art style was fine. Nothing that blew me away (apart from a some full page spreads), but nothing that bothered me either.

The plot didn’t make much sense to me… but that might be my lack of understanding of military tactics. The way I understood it Boekman is in possession of intelligence on where the German troops are situated. But operation Market Garden is set almost a year after he gained that information… I would imagine this to not be accurate anymore by then. Again, maybe I read it wrong. I thought the idea of the flutist was very cute, but also very impractical and unrealistic. Why would you actively attract attention to yourself when you are in hiding?

But for me one of the biggest issues with this novel is that it relies very heavily on tell, not show. And especially in such a visual experience I found it really jarring. Show me that the Germans blow up the bridge, show me that the character becomes a hero. Also, when you do show me things, don’t also go and tell me about them. I can see he is holding an umbrella (where it came from I still do no know), I can see there is smoke rising. All of this also made the pacing feel very off.

I found reading this a very frustrating experience. I really wanted this to be good… but it wasn’t. So now I’m going to watch A Bridge too far instead… because at least that has Sean Connery and Michael Caine in it.

Thank you Net galley for a chance to read some history in comic strip form. I do not know how accurate that map of The Netherlands is nor the translations happening in the book, but at least check and correct that before putting this in print.