Enemy Unseen is a good average late Crofts, with a dozen red herrings and a surprise ending. It makes a relaxing read. You are in a small seaside town, most of the characters are sympathetic, and the action moves gently. As some will be glad to hear, there are no railway timetables or intricate alibis to follow. There is, as so often in Crofts's work, a critical electrical device, but it is one that is easy for everyone to understand.
Both this book and Crofts's next, Death of a Train, have wartime themes. But where the latter deals with the War Cabinet in London, Enemy Unseen is about the Home Guard in Cornwall. So you may now find it unexciting, but it will have struck a chord with many readers at the time.
Sergeant Rollo, introduced in Fear Comes to Chalfont, appears briefly as a temporary Army Captain. But most of the action falls to the old team of French and Carter. And after the excitements of the previous July, the month in which Death of a Train was set, in 1943 French had some pleasantly quiet June days to spend on this not very difficult case in Cornwall.
Richard Wells
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