Schinckel.net

Ben Elton is pretty fantastic. He wrote for The Young Ones, and Blackadder, and has since written several books, most of which are pretty good. His latest is The First Casualty, a historical fiction (?) piece set during the Great War. I was gripped, and read it in one sitting. No comedy here, guys, but well worth the effort. The guts of the story: in 1917, a war hero and poet is killed, not in action, but while recuperating after being injured, and shellshocked. A disgraced police officer, who was sent to jail for refusing to fight in the war (not a conchie, as his grounds were “purely intellectual”) is ‘recruited’ to find the identity of the killer.