Ah this was good. I’ve enjoyed Ben Elton’s writing in the past but that has usually been a satiric take on something more modern. This was a crime mystery fully focused on the first world war - in which a conscientous objector of sorts ends up on the front line. The characters were really well formed, the situations so well described it was like being there, and I thought the story was cleverly put together and executed. Loved it.

I think I might have started reading this before, because it felt very familiar. But I think I got distracted and wanted to write my own Big Brother style book, which never got past 100 words but obviously meant I never went back to the book. I had no idea whodunit and how it was going to end, so it was fascinating to travel through the mystery with the contestants and detectives. The tale dips back and forth between past and present, so you can follow how the contestants entered the house and got to know each other through the prism of how things ended.

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