Phyllis Bottome was a highly regarded author in the 40's and 50's and The Life Line was first published by Faber on rationed paper in 1946. Phyllis and her husband set up a school in Austria where Ian Fleming was sent to after he was kicked out of Eton to learn to write. Seven years later his Casino Royale was published an almost direct copy of The Lifeline. The second book in the Muswell Classic Espionage Series. Available for the first time in 30 years

Mark Chalmers, 36, dark haired, athletic, keen on skiing and winter sports, speaks fluent French and German and has a taste for wine, food and women. Sounds familiar? It is 1938, pre the Munich Agreement and post Anschluss. Chalmers, a master at Eton, is recruited by an old friend at the Foreign Office and introduced to his boss B . Chalmers reluctantly agrees to take on a hazardous mission for British Intelligence to parachute into Nazi-occupied Austria and pass on information to a British agent. In case of trouble he is given a suicide pill. Chalmers has no intention of committing himself beyond this one job but once he reaches his destination, he finds himself sucked into the cause fighting fascism with the Austrian-German Underground - until there is no turning back.