The Suicide Club by Andrew Williams (Hodder & Stoughton)

THE never-ending slaughter of the First World War is the backdrop for this novel but mainly seen through the eyes of those involved in the murky world of the spy.

The central character is Alexander Innes, a captain wounded at the Somme, and now working with the resistance in Belgium.

He is called back to London for a briefing and then dispatched to just behind the front line to Field-Marshall Haig's army headquarters in France.