Weekend book picks: WWII true story 'A Higher Call'

• Daddy Dearest: Charles Dickens was a rather lousy father, according to Gottlieb's 'Great Expectations'
• A detective investigates a murder in Scotland in the bleak 'Blackhouse'
• 'A Higher Call' is about a German WWII pilot who decided not to shoot on an American plane

What should you read this weekend? USA TODAY's picks for book lovers include an inspiring World War II history, plus a look at Charles Dickens as a not-so-great dad of 10 kids.

A Higher Call: An Incredible True Story of Combat and Chivalry in the War-Torn Skies of World War II by Adam Makos with Larry Alexander; Berkley Caliber, 392 pp.; non-fiction

Five days before Christmas in 1943, over the skies of Germany, Charlie Brown, a 20-year-old farm boy from West Virginia, encountered Franz Stigler, a 29-year-old German flying ace.

Brown, the pilot of a B-17 bomber with a crew of nine, was on his first mission over Germany. Stigler, in his Bf-109 fighter, already had scored 22 "victories," or kills of enemy planes.

Brown's plane, nicknamed "Ye Olde Pub," could easily have been No. 23. It had been damaged so badly that its guns no longer worked. The four-motor plane was limping along on only an engine and a half.

The tale of how and why Stigler decided to spare Brown's plane is reconstructed in A Higher Call. Brown and Stigler, former enemies who became friends, died within months of each other in 2008. Their story is worth retelling and celebrating.

USA TODAY says: * * * out of four. A "remarkable story."

Great Expectations: The Sons and Daughters of Charles Dickens by Robert Gottlieb; Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 256 pp., non-fiction

Robert Gottlieb, an accomplished book editor, explores Dickens' tenuous role as a father and what happened to his 10 children.

USA TODAY says: * * *. "Accessible and conversational."

The Blackhouse by Peter May; Silver Oak, 368 pp.; fiction

Edinburgh detective Fin Macleod returns to his boyhood home on the Isle of Lewis and its haunting memories when a murder on the island seems to mirror a similar one in the country's capital.

USA TODAY says: * * *. "Shines with intrigue and superb plotting."

The Valley of Unknowing by Philip Sington; Norton, 297 pp.; fiction

Political and romantic intrigue ensue in this thriller that revolves around the authorship of an international best seller written during the Cold War.

USA TODAY says: * * *. Sington "has woven a tale that is as accessible as it is intricate."

The Entertainer by Margaret Talbot; Riverhead, 432 pp.; non-fiction

New Yorker writer Margaret Talbot's unique memoir of her late father, character actor Lyle Talbot (The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet), uses him as a symbol to explore the rise of mass entertainment in the 20th century.

USA TODAY says: * * *. "Thoughtful and well-researched."

Contributing reviewers: Bob Minzesheimer, Carol Memmott, Elysa Gardner and Bill Desowitz