During the darkest days of the second world war, the British Golden Age author Christopher Bush wrote a trilogy of mysteries, based at least in part on his own experiences in both World War I and World War II. The mysteries featured Bush's regular series detectives, Ludovic Travers and his friend and frequent colleague, Superintendent George Wharton of Scotland Yard, who now apparently holds a much broader portfolio for military intelligence. I have already reviewed the first two volumes in the trilogy, The Case of the Murdered Major and The Case of the Kidnapped Colonel. The third and final volume, The Case of the Fighting Soldier has also been republished by Dean Street Press, which made an electronic version available to me for this review. While each of the books may be read on its own, they make a powerful combination when read in order. The Case of the Fighting Soldier is the subject of today's Classic Mysteries podcast review, and you can listen to the audio version of the review by clicking here.
In the third part of the trilogy, Ludovic Travers, now a Major, is assigned to train British Home Guard troops for likely duty during the war. Travers and George Wharton are on hand when escalating tensions between “regular” army officers and the “not-so-regular,” if more experienced, officers explode into murder. That’s literal, by the way: the victim is killed by the explosion of a powerful bomb from the army’s arsenal. The “fighting soldier” of the title is a man called Captain Mortar, one of the “non-regular” mercenary soldiers. who had gone off to Spain to fight in the Spanish Civil War. Captain Mortar regards himself as a “fighting soldier,” but his contempt for the “regular” officers – the ones with training and superior rank but without much of Mortar’s practical experience – leads to a sharp escalation of tensions. Apparent “accidents” that may not be accidents at all keep happening – and, eventually, there is murder. Wharton and Travers tackle the murder to try to determine if those very evident tensions at the training school led to the murders or if there was a deeper, more subtle motive in long-hidden wartime secrets.
It’s a fascinating story. As usual with Christopher Bush, there is a carefully pieced-together plot; there is also a great deal of military lore to be learned and the casual reader is likely to come away with a fair amount of detailed information about the kinds of specialized bombs that were used in wartime by the British fighting forces. Once again, mystery historian Curtis Evans has provided a helpful introduction to The Case of the Fighting Soldier, which also contains a great deal of information about Christopher Bush’s life and, of course, his other books.
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