Forester’s lost novel proves to be a real find
THOUGH best known for his swashbuckling tales of naval warfare, novelist CS Forster began his career as a thriller writer, rehearsing the taut plots and realistic characters of his Horatio Hornblower series in crime novels such as Payment Deferred (1926) and Plain Murder (1930).
A third book, The Pursued, was written in 1935, but the typescript was lost for almost three-quarters of a century. Published now in this handsome hardback edition, The Pursued is Forester at the height of his powers, a classic tale of death, sex, and revenge in a time when people still hanged for murder.
