Bola to trošku detektívka, lebo vyšetroval vraždu,
trošku romantika, lebo čo sa stane na vojne sa doma v rodinnom živote neráta,
trochu tragický vojnový príbeh, lebo veď vojna nie sú žarty,
malinko thriller, pretože tik tok tik tok tik tok tik tok .... uaaaaaaaa!!!!!
v istom uhle pohladu historický román, pretože mi konečne vysvetlili prvú svetovú vojnu,
ale hlavne to bola dobrá kniha, ktorá sa fakt čítala sama.

I cannot recommend this book too highly

Ben Elton is a surprisingly good author and this is one of his best in fact the best book I have read this year. The premise of the story is ingenious but so utterly compelling .

Flanders, June 1917: a British officer and celebrated poet, is shot dead.
He is killed not by German fire, but while recuperating from shell shock well behind the lines.
A young English soldier is arrested and, although he protests his innocence, charged with his murder.

Douglas Kingsley is a conscientious objector, previously a detective with the London police, now imprisoned for his beliefs. He is released and sent to France in order to secure a conviction.

Mostly I enjoyed this book, although I found the culprit unsatisfactory. I also felt it was longer than it needed to be to tell the story

Enjoyed the story

The story flowed very well. There was enough action going on to make you want to keep on reading, wound around the action on the front line. At times the description of the front during the first world war or rather the description of the many soldiers experiences made me think deeper about how the soldiers were able to cope and get through the day, yet alone weeks, months and years, expecting death to come soon (and of course, as this story brings out, many could not cope indefinitely) Made me think ... more so than when reading history books or watching documentaries where you are partly removed from the soldiers base emotions, and this was really an aside to the main storyline which was well constructed and woven around the front line experience

My second Ben Elton and while it was better than the first book I read - Blind Faith - it isn't saying much as Blind Faith was a mere '2 Star' read for me. This was not a bad book, but I thought that it could have been done better, given the interesting premise.

Douglas Kingsley is a stubborn idealist (not a pacifist, mind you) who works as a policeman in World War-I era Britain. And alike all egoistical idealists, he denies to participate in the war even though that means his family would also have to face the consequences of his rather hypocritical stand against something he did anyway in his previous life - killing (He was a policeman after all, and admits himself that had sent quiet a few criminals to their death while working for the government and even had done some things that he didn't like). He denies to participate in the war as the sheer scale was too big to ignore! (Didn't I say he was a hypocrite?)

So, after having been disgraced nationally and sent to prison, Kingsley dreads that he might be murdered in prison by one of the fellow prisoners he arrested when he was a policeman.

But then something amazing happens. An officer cum a famous poet is killed in Ypres. Not by enemy fire. But in a hospital by a fellow Briton. Thus under special circumstances, Kingsley is sent to the front to investigate the murder.

The premise sounds interesting enough, doesn't it?

But my problem with the book was that that Elton lingered too much on the disgrace aspect of Kingsley's life in Britain after his denial to participate in the war and hence took a very long time (more than half of the book) to actually advance the main plot of the story. And even when Kingsley reached the battlefront in France, the book failed to recapture wholly the sheer horror faced by the men in the Great War.

Even the final confrontation of Kingsley with the real killer seemed overtly dramatic and hence unintentionally hilarious.

The book had promise, but for me, it didn't deliver.

That's 2 in 2, Mr. Elton.

A good read. Enjoy Ben Elton a lot and this was very different to his usual subject matter and writing style. A who dunnit set in the gloomy battlefields of WWI France. Elton’s characters and character development are pretty good here and there are also some lighter moments as you’d expect from the comic writer. Well worth a read.

A historical murder mystery, one which wears its setting very carefully and accurately. It's ambitious title is matched by its ambitious plot. And, genuinely, every page is justified.

Its very much crime fiction; it doesn't have pretensions to be much else; it even has the who-done-it, and the grand finale. It therefore succeeds beyond its pretensions, because it depicts what it was like to actually be there (I assume). In fact, it even depicts how ridiculous a police investigation is in the midst of such slaughter and death. There were times when I agreed with each of the witnesses or key players who said 'does it even bloody matter?!' or some such.

And the conclusion matches this blend of the realistic, the depiction of actual events, with genre fiction. It balances the big reveal with the theme of the title and with the nature of the setting.

What is the intention behind this novel? Is it meant to be humorous? Is it an attempt at romance? Is it an anti-war novel? This read felt it qualified as neither – and it certainly did not engage as the crime novel it probably wants to be most, seeing as the protagonist is Inspector Kingsley. The latter is truly unbelievable because we are simply asked to believe too much about a man who himself holds no belief other than those he has arrived at with his apparently superior logic. (Examples for the latter are sadly missing, too.) Too much telling, not enough showing – and a couple of really hard-to-stomach moments, such as the late-night visit to the home Kingsley has lost or the fact that the show-down has to occur where Kingsley betrayed his wife with the nurse.

“One thing we’ve learned is that when people, especially politicians, start making decisions based on a reading of their moral compass, facts tend to be among the first casualties.”
― Steven D. Levitt, Think Like a Freak

Douglas Kingsley is a top police detective sentenced to jail for refusing to fight during WWI. Viscount Abercrombie, an aristocratic poet and war hero is found murdered in France. Kingsley is sent to France to find the truth behind the murder. Kingsley quickly realises that the main suspect, a shell-shocked soldier, is innocent. Kingsley finds himself caught in the world between the sanctioned murder of war and the illegal act of homicide.

In this novel Ben Elton revisits the trenches of WWI that he portrayed so hilariously with Blackadder and this is very different than any of his novels other that I've read in the past. The plot is pretty preposterous as even Kingsley thinks himself, why would any care about one death when thousands are dying on a daily basis? The introduction of historical background of suffragettes, the rise of Labour and Irish independence feel rather cliched IMHO.However it is worth persevering with because once Kingsley gets to the front line, the book moves onto a different plane and the main character becomes less facetious finally taking on real human dimensions.

There is no real mystery in who committed the dastardly crime and the ending is a little too neat
for my liking but that said whilst Elton is no Faulks for about 100 pages he manages to fill the reader with a real sense of the horror and misery that those real life combatants must have felt. As such it is a reasonable effort and worth a go.

Elton cleverly inserts an able and mature observer into the middle of the 3rd Ypres battle and explores the idea of romantic heroism against the disillusionment experienced by those fighting. It works well on several levels: as a whodunnit, as a description of First World War conditions, and as an exploration of heroism and war. Sure, the plot is somewhat contrived and Elton is not an especially lyrical writer. Overall, it’s an interesting read.

Good insight into the world of WW1 the social and realistic nature of the horror that was the war and the time.
Elton once again writes real people with some humour but it's mostly a detective historical novel.

Having lived in exile for twenty years, partly as a consequence of my conscientious objection to being conscripted into the Apartheid killing machine, I found this exploration of the ethics of objection and pacifism fascinating.

The detective story, and love stories, within it are well told, and the book is an exciting read as well.

It is difficult to examine such an emotive topic of ethics without being preachy or boring, but Ben Elton tackles the deeply difficult matter sensitively and with a light touch.

The balance between ethical virtue, priggishness and moral narcissism is a very difficult one to find. It isn’t easy to acknowledge ones own hypocrisy while recognising that, despite it, one must still aim to do the right thing.

Ben shows that a morally flawed hero remains one, even when compromised... and that does not mean a ‘war hero’ (such a thing being an oxymoron).