The First Casualty

ben elton

In Flanders in June 1917, a British officer and celebrated poet is shot dead, 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 Konig, formerly a detective with the London police, soon discovers that both the evidence and the witnesses he needs are quite literally disappearing into the mud that surrounds him.

Genres fictionhistorical fictionwarhistoricalworld war icrimemysteryhumorcontemporarydetective

389 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1,2005

This edition

Format: 389 pages, Hardcover
Published: November 1, 2005 by Transworld Publishers
ISBN: 9780593051115
ASIN: 0593051114
Language: English

Characters More characters

Inspector Douglas Kingsley

A vaguely arrogant, but nevertheless kind and morally upstanding, intellectual, whose intricate sense of logic is frequently given superiority over self-preservation, a trait which proves his undoing. His brother Robert was killed in battle and he must no...
Captain Shannon

An unbalanced, sadistic psychopath whose warped mentality has clearly been exacerbated by his experiences of war. He is deeply misogynistic, but has no trouble attracting women because of his handsome face and surface charm. Kingsley narrowly prevents him...
Nurse Murray

A staunch feminist and former suffragette, who abandoned her cause following the outbreak of war so she could lend her support to the military. She has a brief but passionate affair with Kingsley, who is both enamoured of and horrified by her unashamed vu...
Viscount Abercrombie

The character of the Viscount Abercrombie may be based, at least in part, upon Siegfried Sassoon, a British soldier and poet who became disillusioned with the War and became an outspoken anti-war activist....
Agnes Kingsley

Inspector Kingsley‘s wife....

About the author

ben elton

Ben Elton was born on 3 May 1959, in Catford, South London. The youngest of four, he went to Godalming Grammar school, joined amateur dramatic societies and wrote his first play at 15. He wanted to be a stagehand at the local theatre, but instead did A-Level Theatre Studies and studied drama at Manchester University in 1977.

His career as both performer and writer encompasses some of the most memorable and incisive comedy of the past twenty years. His ground breaking work as a TV stand-up comedian set the (high) standard of what was to follow. He has received accolades for his hit TV sit-coms, The Young Ones, Blackadder and The Thin Blue Line.

More recently he has had successes with three hit West End musicals, including the global phenomenon We Will Rock You. He has written three plays for the London stage, including the multi-award-winning Popcorn. Ben's international bestselling novels include Stark, Inconceivable, Dead Famous and High Society. He won the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award for the novel Popcorn.

Elton lives in Perth with his Aussie wife Sophie and three children.