I'm a fan of E. Phillips Oppenheim's books of interconnected short stories, but his 1918 novel The Zeppelin's Passenger defeated me after chapter four. It never got out of second gear.
The emotional crisis of fiancée and sister of a UK POW, however, did give me a chance for some creative mis-reading in the interest of humor:
"....Dick, the dearest thing on earth to both of us...."
*
...."But he is hungry,” Helen sobbed. “I can’t bear to think of his being hungry. Every time I sit down to eat, it almost chokes me.”
“I suppose he has forgotten what a whisky and soda is like,” Philippa murmured, with a little catch in her own throat.
“He always used to love one about this time,” Helen faltered, glancing at the clock.
“And cigarettes!” Philippa exclaimed. “I wonder whether they give him anything to smoke.”
“Nasty German tobacco, if they do,” Helen rejoined indignantly. “And to think that I have sent him at least six hundred of his favourite Egyptians!”
She fell once more on her knees by her friend’s side. Their arms were intertwined, their cheeks touching. One of those strange, feminine silences of acute sympathy seemed to hold them for a while under its thrall. Then, almost at the same moment, a queer awakening came for both of them....
Full novel at:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1931/1931-h/1931-h.htm
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