Some of the characters from the previous novel, such as Squadron Leader "Fanny" Barton and erudite but iconoclastic intelligence officer "Skull" Skelton, reprise their roles.

The fictional RAF Hornet Squadron features in several novels by Derek Robinson, most notably Piece of Cake, which detailed their service during the first year of the Second World War.

Unusual for a Derek Robinson novel, A Good Clean Fight also features other branches of the armed forces, such as a patrol of the Special Air Service (SAS), as well as several characters from the Luftwaffe and Afrika Korps.

Anxious to avoid the repercussions for this act and for the errors he made on the previous patrol, Lampard eagerly volunteers to lead his men out on another sortie into the desert.

Barton, eager to make a name for himself, proposes to take Hornet Squadron, equipped with US-built Curtiss Tomahawks, out to a forward airstrip LG-181 and commence a campaign of low-level strafing attacks on enemy targets designed to provoke the Luftwaffe into battle; the plan is approved.

Days of fruitless searching prompts him to divide his force into two and the section that he leads, whilst driving at night, speeds over the rim of a crescent-shaped dune and most of it is wiped out in the fiery pile-up.

In desperation, Barton orders repeat-attacks on the same targets with the result that the enemy prepare more AA defences, culminating in the loss of five pilots in a day.

Lampard’s SAS patrol drives across the inland sand sea in a wide circle behind Axis lines, heading for Benghazi, with Lester and Malplacket.

Schramm comes up with a plan to match the boldness of the SAS by taking a single, long-range Heinkel He 111 bomber southwards to bomb the isolated but vital British supply bases along the Takoradi Trail.

Hornet Squadron, equipped with newer Curtiss Kittyhawks, begin to attack German airfields and, as Barton had hoped from the start, the enemy Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters finally rise to do battle.

Flown by an Italian pilot named Di Marco, Schramm’s Heinkel flies the long route to the British transit base at Fort Lamy in Chad.

Due to its isolation, the base is undefended and caught by surprise, allowing the Heinkel to destroy months' worth of fuel and supplies along with nearly two dozen Hawker Hurricane fighters.

Mike Petty, writing in the UK Independent in 1993, praised the novel, saying that Robinson "picks his way surefootedly through the quagmire of moral complications without ever resorting either to handwringing or to gung-ho posturing, and, most importantly, without devaluing bravery."