Inspector Burke is sent to a village in the south east of England to ensure that the test of a revolutionary new aircraft, The Mendip, goes off without a hitch. Peter Chiltern, the machine's inventor, is confident - but his fiancee Sandra Pentland fears the worse, convinced that she has discovered evidence of a plot to infiltrate the secret test. When the aircraft is waylaid by a ruthless privateer, Sandra's worse fears are realised and Burke faces a race against time to discover the whereabouts of the missing plane (and its missing inventor) before it is too late...

Originally published in 1940, this is a fast-paced thriller set during the run up to the Second World War.