La mejor obra de Ben Elton... ¡y no es una sátira ni comedia negra! En 'La primera víctima', Ben Elton nos sumerge en una trama de investigación policial militar que tiene lugar en el frente de Ypres en 1917, ¡¡¡durante la Primera Guerra Mundial!!!.Además de ese ingenioso escenario, Elton no se guarda nada sobre la absoluta insensatez de la guerra, la desigualdad de género y las sufragistas, el trato a la homosexualidad, las distinciones de clase, los bolcheviques británicos, los objetores de co...

Ben Elton es un hombre muy inteligente. Esa es toda la trama de La primera víctima, y esta reseña de libro te lo confirma. Ben Elton es un hombre muy inteligente, y su personaje principal es una fantasía de autorrealización de Ben Elton apenas disimulada. ¡MIRA CÓMO! Ben Elton le explica a un tribunal por qué es demasiado inteligente para luchar en la Primera Guerra Mundial, utilizando argumentos que los historiadores no formularon hasta los años treinta. ¡ASÓMBRATE! Cómo Ben Elton, a pesar d...

Ni de lejos tan asombrosamente genial como *Blackadder Goes Fourth* de Ben Elton, *La primera víctima* sigue siendo una adición interesante al campo de la ficción contemporánea sobre la Primera Guerra Mundial.En parte novela de misterio, en parte un homenaje apenas disimulado a Siegfried Sassoon (¿o es Wilfred Owen?), *La primera víctima* toma a un objetor de conciencia, el inspector Douglas Kingsley de Scotland Yard, y lo planta en Flandes para investigar el asesinato de un famoso poeta-soldado...

Novel opens during a court case for crime of being a consciousness objector in WWI Interesting main character Douglas Kingsley, a Met Police inspector who argues with the judge about pointless killing during all wars. He even argues that fighting on behalf of Belgium was wrong as they were slaughtering native people in [Belgian] Congo - which caused rage in the judge & courtroomKingsley, Abecrombie, Hopkins et al are unusual & richly drawn war time characters - they are conscientious obj...

Another great read from Ben Elton - who knew?
Researches his topic and the period so well. Learn a lot about a lot. Not just a whodunnit.

Ben Elton is a brilliant story teller. This book is set in 1917 and concerns a conscientious objector policeman who is sent to Flanders to investigate a murder. Some of the battle scenes are very graphic but do show how life must have been in the trenches.

Reading this page turner made me realize just how much of the British current collective psyche has been influenced by the two Great Wars. The protagonist's moral awakening, to his one man revolutionary crusade failure; his abject realization of failure during incarceration; his rebirth after his rescue to his voluntary participation on the Flanders front completes the formation of British psyche in the Industrial age. Elton's assertion that 'Compromises a man has to make with misery and injusti...

Ex Bookworm group review:I have always liked Ben Elton. I think he is a funny and intelligent man. But I did not like this.The main problem for me was that Elton just couldn’t decide what the book should be. It certainly wasn’t a novel of suspense. After all, it took at least half the book to even get the policeman to the scene of the crime. It wasn’t really a “whodunnit” because the clues weren’t there for us to work out. (Mind you, I always thought Shannon had done it simply because he was so ...

My second Ben Elton and while it was better than the first book I read - Blind Faith - it isn't saying much as Blind Faith was a mere '2 Star' read for me. This was not a bad book, but I thought that it could have been done better, given the interesting premise.Douglas Kingsley is a stubborn idealist (not a pacifist, mind you) who works as a policeman in World War-I era Britain. And alike all egoistical idealists, he denies to participate in the war even though that means his family would also h...

The First Casualty of War is of course truth: with hindsight it is easy to label WW1 futile and lament the loss of A 'Golden Generation' At the time anyone who spoke out against the senseless carnage risked imprisonment, or social obvilion at the least. and so having defended himself in court, explaining why he refuses to climb into a uniform and shot some hapless German citizen whose government is also urging him to kill Brits & their allies by whipping up the same propaganda, our hero find...