"The first casualty, when war comes, is truth." So said Hiram Johnson, a progressive Republican senator from California; his words referred to World War One, the conflict around which this novel is woven.
This is the crux of the matter in Ben Elton's 2005 detective novel, which takes place against a background of World War One, and in which all of the key characters are at best, economical with the truth, and at worst, lying their heads off. The plot centers around the murder of Viscount Abercrombie, who is shot whilst recovering from post traumatic stress disorder in a military hospital; the man charged with the task of investigating the crime is a conscientious objector in need of redemption; branded a coward, and imprisoned for being so, Inspector Kingsley travels to Flanders Field and the front line of the war in order to properly investigate. The novel is filled with twists and turns and genuinely shocking revelations about some of the characters; for example, Abercrombie, a beloved war poet who is is believed the author based on Siegfried Sassoon, is actually rather disillusioned with the war that he had previously been hugely supportive of, and considers it a generals' folly that sends ill-equipped young men to the front as cannon fodder. It also becomes clear that Abercrombie was secretly gay.
The novel is on one hand a classic detective story, and on another, a book that has a clear thematic purpose. Much of the book deals with post traumatic stress disorder, from which the Viscount is suffering, and which the psychopathic Captain Shannon does not believe in. Another recurring theme is that of the changing opinion within Britain about the war. It had become increasingly clear by 1917 that many of the generals steering it had no clear idea of what they were doing, and their strategy reflected this; men were untrained, ill-equipped and had "temporary gentlemen" - men promoted at break-neck speed because of a lack of high ranking personnel - leading them, in a military version of the blind leading the blind. There was dissent back in England about the direction that the war was taking and Elton makes this clear in the novel. A third theme is that of the peace movement during World War One.
The novel was largely well received although historians observed that some of Elton's historical details were not particularly factual or accurate. Detective fiction is yet another curious development in the career of author Ben Elton, a British-Australian comedian who made his name in the nineteen eighties as one of the angry young men of English alternative comedy, irreverent, polarizing, and overly political. Elton forged dual careers as writer and stand-up comedian but was a controversial figure because his political views became extremely vituperative. As well as authoring fifteen novels, Elton has also co-written a successful long-running comedy series and written two musicals.
