The Island Mystery

A small Mediterranean island attracts outsized political ambitions in George A. Birmingham's comic novel. Salissa has caves beneath its fields and vineyards and a harbour protected by a reef. With the First World War under way, the narrator tries to reconstruct the island's affairs from personal accounts and gossip. Sir Bartholomew Bland-Potterton supplies grand statements about its strategic importance, bringing the language of public speeches into private conversation.

Among the figures connected with Salissa are the exiled King Konrad Karl of Megalia, politician Michael Gorman and Daisy Donovan, its young queen. During a sea passage, Phillips tells Gorman about his feelings for Daisy and doubts whether he can hope to marry her. A confidence about their meeting in a cave then draws Gorman's attention to large iron cisterns, which Phillips calls part of the island's secret. The mixture of court politics, romantic hesitation and an unusual physical clue gives readers a comic adventure built around competing interests.