Really excellent

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, especially the flawed and sterling hero. He is like a dog with a bone as he follows his enquiry, just as all really good detectives should be, but in this investigation, to an extraordinary extent. But his behaviour is no more unusual than everything that is going on around him. The whole story is wonderfully researched, and nothing I read was out of step with what, to a lesser extent, I believe I know about WW1. It is intellectually first class. If it isn’t a set book in schools, it should be! I had to read Good by to All That by Robert Graves for A level, and had nightmares afterwards for ages because of its emotional punch. I would much rather at that age have read this far cooler and more explicitly informative book. Highly recommended both for its excellent story telling and intellectual accuracy.

Ben Elton is a clever man.

That's the whole plot of this book. Ben Elton is a clever man, and his main character is a thinly disguised Ben Elton wish fulfillment fantasy.

WATCH! As Ben Elton explains to a court of law why he's too clever to fight in WW1, using the sort of arguments that historians don't put together until the thirties.

GASP! As Ben Elton, despite being too clever to fight in WW1 becomes a better soldier than the bastard child of Captain America and Leonidas of Sparta.

GRIMACE! As Ben Elton has cringeworthy sex with a Suffragette whose only character traits are hating everything Ben Elton proxy stands for. Obviously she'll fall in love with him. Because obviously.

WINCE! As Ben Elton proves clever enough to solve a mystery that he didn't bother giving you any of the clues to.

YAWN! As Ben Elton puts together a happy return-to-the-status-quo ending that you'll find it hard to care about.

Or, don't bother. You should conscientiously object to this book.

A solid 3.5 stars. This is the 1st book by Ben Elton they I have read and I enjoyed it. It’s effectively a murder mystery but set in WW1 and investigated undercover in the trenches.

I put off reading this book, because I don't really care for war stories. I got through it because many of the characters and events were similar to scenes in Black Adder Goes Forth (same writer). The story of an investigation of a death behind the lines during a time of war, just because the victim was well connected and famous for his poetry seemed odd, but then so are a lot of things in war time. I suppose the balance between reality and chaos. There wasn't much funny stuff here as can usually be expected from Ben Elton, but he did wrap it up well.

A gripping and readable book, as Ben Elton's work always is. His stories are never particularly subtle, but they're accessible and engaging and the characters are a lot of fun. I'm always interested in this period of history, too, and it adds a unique twist to have a murder investigation on the front lines. Glad I read it.

Casualty just about sums up this novel. In fact, even the title is a misnomer – yes there are several casualties, but quite how one can claim this is the first casualty when the novel is set in 1917, is quite beyond me. The premise itself is quite an interesting one : a former policeman, who has refused to fight for intellectual/moral reasons, is then forced onto the front line in order to investigate the murder of not merely a Viscount, but an individual considered to be one of the great War heroes. This could have made for a brilliant novel that examined the intrigues and the morally dubious nature of those leading the charge. Moreover, given Elton’s involvement in the writing of “Blackadder” I had high hopes that he would deal sensitively with the tragic nature of war balancing the stark horrors of the trenches with lighter moments and insights into those who had failed to protect their own men. Sadly, I was utterly mistaken.

So where did Elton go so wrong? My first problem is with the central character: he refuses for intellectual reasons to join in the war effort claiming that he does not comprehend the logical reason for fighting on this scale. Fair enough and the manner in which he is treated and imprisoned was an interesting insight into the attitude towards conscientious objectors in this era– something rarely dealt with in modern war literature. However, this same individual is prepared on multiple occasions to behave in an underhand and immoral fashion often acting on instinct rather than thinking intellectually or logically. His decisions often simply did not make sense. It was evident that Elton was trying to create a new detective figure in the mould of Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot, piecing together the evidence that the reader was unable to spot or INDEED those around the lead investigator to come to a seemingly impossible discovery of the truth. The problem with this is that unlike in cases such as “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd” or “The Hound of the Baskervilles”, the murderer was bloody obvious from the start.

My second issue was with Elton’s treatment of women: this really was a case of a presentation of the angel in the house, the wife patiently waiting and adoringly welcoming her husband home regardless of his shenanigans and the whore in the field hospital. Thus the presentation of women, many of whom suffered greatly to the loss of their men during the First World War and many of whom risked their lives in field hospitals, was at best shoddy and at worst, utterly misogynistic.  Spoiler alert: now perhaps Mr Elton has not been around many women. However, let me assure him that anyone who has been raped, (not that I’ve ever suffered this terrible misfortune), is very unlikely to merely a week later throw herself into bed with another man. Nor is the sex scene that ensues likely to resemble something from a Carry On film. Let me give you n an example: “Golly. That is a big one, isn’t it?” Or perhaps “I am a bad girl, aren’t I?” Or worse still, the woman’s utterance of “gosh, golly… Tally Ho!” during sex itself. Perhaps this is Mr Elton’s idea of humour – it fails!

Nought to be honest, is his treatment of the suffering of the men on the front line any better. On the rare occasions when our protagonists actually make it to the front Elton appears to have the need to throttle us with grotesque detail simply in order to prove how terrible the war was. Perhaps he needs to read novels that deal with this in a far more subtle and evocative way. The description, for example, of hacking a German courts to pieces or placing your hand in the earth to find it actually embedded in maggoty flesh is entirely unnecessary nor is it effective given the lack of buildup. We have no investments in these dead bodies and thus there is no sense of the tragedy that this war truly was and the violence merely becomes gratuitous.

I think Elton’s primary problem though, was that he simply didn’t know what he wanted this novel to be: sometimes it is a war novel – and there are interesting issues that he touches upon: at other times there is clearly an attempt at comedy – which frequently becomes inappropriate; at other times it is a detective novel. However this mishmash of forms does not work and thus the novel ultimately falls short.

If you are looking for a detective novel, go to Christie or PD James. If you are looking for a war novel, turn to “Birdsong” or “All Quiet on the Western Front”. If you are looking for comedy, try Caitlin Moran or Sue Townsend. If you are looking for something mildly unbelievable and at times, slightly offensive and more than often in accurate, then by all means give “The First Casualty” a go, but I think you will find yourself one of many casualties who have endured this calamitous work.

Given the author and the setting, it's obvious to compare this book to "Blackadder Goes Forth". However, it really has a lot more in common with "Charley's War". It's not a comedy, and the plot is a bit thin: the point of the book is to describe what conditions were like during the Great War. I think it succeeds, so it's worth reading.

As an example, the book mentions Field Punishment Number 1, where a soldier would be tied to a wheel (spreadeagled) and left there all day. I remember that from "Charley's War", and they mentioned a couple of problems: if your nose itches then you can't scratch it, and you're helpless if the area gets shelled. However, this book went into a bit more detail: flies would crawl over the men's faces, and they wouldn't be able to swat them away.

According to the back cover, this is a murder mystery, although it takes about 200 pages to get to that point. It starts out with the protagonist (Kingsley) on trial because he refused conscription. Unfortunately, it doesn't show any of the events leading up to that point. Since he was a police inspector, wouldn't that be one of the reserved occupations? I assume that the police weren't all conscripted, or replaced by seriously injured veterans. Similarly, Kingsley later agrees to take on a role as an MP, so he'll still be a policeman in a different environment. Couldn't he have done that before? Did nobody offer that to him before it all went to trial?

Looking at superhero comics, I think this might have worked better as a "shared universe" story. The first story would involve Kingsley's conscription papers and his decision to resist, then end with him in prison. The second story would involve a murder, where they pull in an existing character from the first story to investigate. That way, they can get moving on the second story as quickly as possible, without having to spend time on his backstory, and it wouldn't feel so contrived. (One of the characters in the novel even makes a comment along the lines of: "If you didn't exist then we would have had to create you.")

Ben Elton is an engaging writer and clearly not unintelligent. He does come up with interesting situations/contexts, and I liked Dead Famous and, despite the patently unrealistic premise, Time and Time Again. In The First Casualty, he is at it again with an interesting premise; however, I found his great scenes in the trenches and description of how pointless WWI was (certainly form the wet and miserable trenches in Flanders) to just barely offset the unrealism of how the protagonist gets convicted for his principles (that WWI is irrational), that his death in prison is staged so that he can investigate a crime which it would appear no one in the government would want to be solved. Throw in an unbelievable suffragette/nurse/sex fiend and a thoroughly despicable yet apparently highly placed British counterspy and I found myself alternating between wanting to throw the book away and reading "just one more chapter". I suppose at the end it was worth reading primarily for the vividness of the war scenes in the trenches, but because of the many unlikely/untrustworthily described characters, I cannot say I entirely trust Elton as to the accuracy of this time. I would therefore not call this historical fiction, but instead a relatively interesting set of hypotheses loosely based upon WWI. A 2.8 rating if I could.

Reading this page turner made me realize just how much of the British current collective psyche has been influenced by the two Great Wars. The protagonist's moral awakening, to his one man revolutionary crusade failure; his abject realization of failure during incarceration; his rebirth after his rescue to his voluntary participation on the Flanders front completes the formation of British psyche in the Industrial age.

Elton's assertion that 'Compromises a man has to make with misery and injustice simply to muddle through,' very nicely captures the stark choices in front of the British population facing the Germans in the First Great War. Was the war just? Was the excessive bloodshed necessary? How long should we fight and to what end? But most of all, the British population's trust in their political establishment was very high back then as compared to the current level of trust which must be rock bottom, if we consider the result of Brexit. I think the high level of confidence and moral exhibited by the British in the First Great War was due to the many colonial wins over lesser armies in the non-European encounters. The level of patriotism and zeal is definatley taken a nosedive following the two great wars and loss of the Empire.

Quite enjoyed this - parts of the narrative seem based on other well known WW1 books. Interesting story line that I didn't guess the outcome of until about 3/4 of the way through.

On the whole I really enjoyed This book.The account of the warfare on the front line and in the trenches was graphic and harrowing and really made you think of the dreadful sacrifices made.My only criticism was that at times I felt the dialogue spoken was pure Blackadder.

I do like Ben Elton's books so I hoped he wouldn't be his usually, funny self given this book's subject matter and he wasn't. It's more a murder investigation which just happens to be set in Yypres (it takes a third of the book 'til we get there but we do). I enjoyed it