Albania, 1939.

On holiday with three friends in the mountains, Catherine Ames abruptly finds herself in the middle of an Italian invasion.

Plunged into a war she never realised was coming, Catherine and a badly injured Roberta are rescued by the American Clayton Andrews.

Angry and keen to strike back, Catherine finds herself agreeing to carry out an arms deal for Clay — and in return, he promises to look after Roberta and get her out of the conflict zone.

Sophie Elligan is a known gun-runner, from a family of gun-runners.

She is intelligent, beautiful, and deadly; anyone who gets in her way has a habit of turning up dead.

When Catherine comes crashing into her life, Sophie loses everything she holds most dear.

With her eye more firmly on the future than ever before, Sophie gathers together a motley crew to retrieve and deliver the armaments Clay needs.

With nothing left to go back to, their ragged band presses onwards, watched at every turn.

Will Catherine and her crew succeed in their mission?

Or will a 'Prelude to War' quickly turn into chaos - with everyone's life at stake?

‘Prelude to War’ is the third in the gripping Arms of War series, following ‘The Trade’ and ‘Shadows in the Sun’.

Praise for Christopher Nicole:

‘Well-researched…Evocative descriptions of scenery and edifices, and exact period dialogue’ – Historical Novels Society

‘…told with smooth authenticity’ – Publishers’ Weekly

Christopher Nicole is a prolific British writer of over 200 novels and non-fiction books since 1957. He wrote as Christopher Nicole under several pseudonyms including Peter Grange, Andrew York, Robin Cade, Mark Logan, Christina Nicholson, Alison York, Leslie Arlen, Robin Nicholson, C.R. Nicholson, Daniel Adams,Simon McKay, Caroline Gray and Alan Savage. He also wrote under the penname Max Marlow co-authoring with his wife, fellow author Diana Bachmann.

Endeavour Press is the UK’s leading independent publisher of digital books.