The curtain had been drawn back and there was the bed. Wharton and a stranger were standing by it, and when Wharton moved to meet me, I saw on the bed the body of Penelope Craye.

She’s dead, I said.

Wharton merely nodded.

Once again, we meet our old friend Ludovic Travers–now Major Travers, and commandant of Camp 55 in England during World War Two. Nearby lives the rather mysterious Colonel Brende–mysterious because he is in possession of certain fact relating to aerial defence.

Travers’s suspicions that all is not well are intensified when Penelope, the colonel’s flashy secretary, is murdered. Then George Wharton appears on the scene–the Scotland Yard man who has already solved some strange mysteries. In the rush of exciting events which follow, Travers plays a major part in solving the baffling happenings. Christopher Bush, Ludovic Travers, and George Wharton–at their best!

The Case of the Kidnapped Colonel was originally published in 1942. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.

Curiosity is whetted by the aptness and neatness of his plots… All kinds of whys and wherefores could plainly be devised, but it would be hard to imagine any so satisfying as Mr. Bush’s. Times Literary Supplement

Well written, supplied with good characters, its setting and military incidentals realistic … in short, a good specimen of detective-story fitted to war-time England. Sunday Times

No wonder Ludovic Travers is puzzled, and so will be the reader in this amusing variety of the orthodox spy story. Guardian