Beginner's Luck

When a cannon ball is reported missing from the historic caste of Lodden in Sussex, Hugh Curtis – a very new reporter on the Daily Record – is sent to cover the trivial episode by way of a punishment, because he had “fallen down” badly on a story the previous day. Digruntled, he makes up his mind to find the wretched cannon ball at any cost.

In fact, it nearly costs him his life—and Mollie Bourne hers, too. Mollie is the beautiful girl reporter of the rival paper—“the Courier’s spoiled darling,” according to Hugh. But she proves to be a good companion in a tight spot, for finding the cannon ball is only a prelude to a series of terrifying experiences. Luck, however, is on their side—“beginner’s luck,” Hugh modesty calls it, when he lands the scoop of the year.

Paul Somers is the pen name of Paul Winterton (1908-2001). He was born in Leicester and educated at the Hulme Grammar School, Manchester and Purley County School, Surrey, after which he took a degree in Economics at London University. He was on the staff of The Economist for four years, and then worked for fourteen years for the London News Chronicle as reporter, leader writer and foreign correspondent. He was assigned to Moscow from 1942 to 1945, where he was also the correspondent of the BBC’s Overseas Service.

After the war he turned to full-time writing of detective and adventure novels and produced more than forty-five books. His work was serialized, televised, broadcast, filmed and translated into some twenty languages. He is noted for his varied and unusual backgrounds – which have included Russia, newspaper offices, the West Indies, ocean sailing, the Australian outback, politics, mountaineering and forestry – and for never repeating a plot.

Paul Somers was a founder member and first joint secretary of the Crime Writers’ Association.