Suppose you were back in the 1980's and went to France to visit your father's grave, to inform him that your mother has just dies, but you find the cemetery has no record of your father?
This is what happens to Peter Houston. Not only does the cemetery have no records there or in the surrounding military cemeteries but they tell Peter this has happen twice before.

All Peter knows is that his mother received a letter from Pierre de St. Laurent saying that he would look after her husband's grave. Now St. Laurent is also missing.

A stranger informs Peter that the man he is looking for is in another town and while Peter and his wife, Jan, travel to seek the man out, a van forces them off the road into a river. Peter survives but Jan doesn't.

When he awakens, Peter is back at the hotel he had been staying at. The owner and his daughter, Simone, feel badly for Peter and permit him to recouperate there.

Peter has his wife's funeral and immediately sets out to find the answers. Simone travels with him as an interpreter.
However when they arrive at the town the stranger had mentioned, it is a trap and they are almost killed.

With no where else to go to, they travel back to the cemetery officials and look up the families of the other missing men.

Morrell has done well in creating suspense but his characters actions and development leave much to be desired. How can a man have his wife's funeral and no mourning period? Simone tells Peter shortly after that she loves him. Not appropriate so soon after a wife's death.
In addition, Peter has now lost his mother and wife and seems a very unsympathetic character.

However, Morrell is one of our best writers of suspense today and it is interesting to see this as an early example of the development of a writer. ( )