The Case of the Fighting Soldier

What was I to be this time? A Commandant again of a Prisoner of War Camp? Was I to get a sedentary job at the War Office itself, and begin the slow process of fossilisation? Was I due for some wholly new job of which the rank and file had never even heard? As it turned out, I most certainly was.

Ludovic Travers reports to room 299 of the War Office to receive new orders. He is sent up to Derbyshire to be a training officer for the local Home Guard, and to be plunged headlong into a new wartime mystery. It is not long before he meets the ‘fighting soldier' of the title, a tough veteran of the Spanish Civil War and dozens of other bloody battlefields.

But when chewing-gum is discovered wedged into the barrel of a bomb launcher, it is obvious there's an individual—or more than one—in the camp out to make sure someone doesn't live to fight another day. And it's not long before their diabolical intent leads to explosive murder. Once again, it will be down to Travers's quick wits to make sense of it and bring the guilty to justice—with able support from George Wharton of Scotland Yard.

The Case of the Fighting Soldier was originally published in 1942. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.