1: A Country House Murder Mystery in A POW Camp
Master mystery writer Gilbert takes the classic English weekend country house murder and resituates it in an Allied POW camp in Italy just before the Allied invasion of Italy (which is ably described by Alan Moorehead in Eclipse). Gilbert spent time in a prison camp, and thus writes with authority about the setting. The book is similar to The Great Escape in that the prisoners are mainly English officers engaged in tunneling out of the camp--although here the camp is run by Italians. The camp's one Greek POW is found dead in one of the tunnels and one of the officers is appointed detective to figure who killed him, how, and why, and what it means. Thusly, Gilbert presents a traditional whodunit, with the impending German assumption of control of the camp as a looming threat. Like your average Agatha Christie, it's entertaining and relatively clever.
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