I read this due to my appreciation of Josephine Tey, writer of books such as The Daughter of Time and Brat Farrar, to name but two of her classic mysteries.
This is an altogether different book. This isn't a mystery, it's a tragedy that looks at the war through the eyes of a young boy who went from having a career and fighting for his country to being left out in the cold when they had no more need of him.
In many ways it is a great story, but in others it disappoints.
What disappoints most is the lack of sympathy I had with the main character through most of the book as he was a very unemotional individual with very few connections, but eventually that is how you do come to sympathize with him - an outsider trying to fit in.
The war itself is mentioned very little, it is told through incidents taking place around the war, while Kif is on leave or in confrontations with fellow soldiers. The first two acts drag on a little.
The third act is where things do get interesting.
Kif is left to fend for himself, manages to find work but it sadly comes undone in the end and he is forced into a life of crime as a means to survive. It is through this transition from naive boy to competent thief that we see the most change. It is through his treatment after the war, as a result of being turned down for employment due to a criminal record, of being stripped of hope for the future that Kif finally sets out on a criminal job that leads to his downfall.
It is the tragedy of Kif's story that is left with you at the end. A boy who fought for his country was left to fend for himself afterwards with no support from the Government in who's name he went to war for.Tey looks to get across to the reader that war was not glorious. It was harrowing and despairing; and for those who came home it was only part of the battle for survival.
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