From E. W. Hornung — the English author who gave the world Raffles, the gentleman thief, and who was Arthur Conan Doyle's own brother-in-law — comes a quieter, more intimate novel that stands apart from his famous crime fiction.

Duncan Clephane is a war-wounded officer who has no illusions about himself — he is no hero, and he knows it. Returning from war, he unexpectedly reconnects with Catherine Evers, an old acquaintance, and her son Bob — and finds himself drawn into a web of duty, old feeling, and unspoken tension. Bob has fallen dangerously in love with a woman believed to be an adventuress, set against a backdrop of Swiss hotel society alive with rumour and intrigue. What begins as a quiet errand of protection turns into something far more complicated — and far more revealing. Clever, fresh, and told with more than the usual measure of art — so said the Detroit Free Press in 1903 — .