S C Grant

Close to the Edge S C Grant

In the spring of 1917 the allied countries fighting German were desperate for the United States of America to declare war on their enemy and send her troops to Europe. But all three countries were in a desperate state. In Russia the army had collapsed and the country was descending into chaos. After the battle of Verdun the French army had mutinied and only the most severe punishment instituted by the High Command restored order. In Britain socialist agitators and peace campaigners were organizing rent strikes and demonstrating for peace talks to be started; while the population in general were half starved and working long hours to support the war effort. While moral amongst the troops fighting in the trenches was at a critical low due to the appalling losses in men for such little if any gain in territory. The British Prime Minister feared that Britain could descend into chaos and revolution. Thus America seeing her potential allies in disarray would remain neutral and her troops stay on her far distant shore. So when a train crash saw the deaths of over three hundred troops on there way to the fighting in France, plus a hundred women and children, he decided every effort must me made to unearth the cause of the disaster and quickly to prevent the socialist aggitators and peace campaigners using it to instigate unrest in the country. To this end he ordered the best available detective, in or out of military uniform, to be put on the case with the instruction that he was to produce a report in just ten days, in the hope that the rapid solving of the crime would calm the rising disquiet about the war and above all the handling of it by the politicians, amongst the populous before it could be used to stir the people into a revolution against the Government. So it was that a Lieutenant Joseph Carstein, a former Inspector in the Metropolitan Police, was called back from his military unit in France and given the task of find the facts behind what happened on that fateful day near the City of Durham on the main railway line from London to Scotland. But Carstein quickly felt himself being used for the politicians own ends and he as tracked the main suspect across the North of England battling anti-semitism and inept police colleagues, he began to doubt if what he was uncovering was the answer they wanted,