Nevil Shute’s first novel was Marazan published in 1926, and written when he was chief calculator on the R100 airship construction team. He wrote it in the evenings, and changed his name (from Nevil Shute Norway, so he really wasn’t trying to fool anyone) to try and prevent his bosses from noticing that he had too much time on his hands. And also because to write a novel was considered below the dignity of a serious aeronautical engineer.
   It’s a simple murder mystery set in the days of barn-storming pilots. Philip Stenning crashes his plane in a paddock and is rescued by an escaped prisoner, Denis Compton. Owing him his life, Stenning agrees to help Compton investigate the illegal activities of Compton’s half-brother, Italian Baron Rodrigo Mattani, who is responsible for framing Compton.
  Compton and Stenning interrupt a drug exchange in Marazan Sound in the Isles of Scilly (west of Land’s End), during which Compton is shot.
   Stenning, with help from Scotland Yard and a W.W.I flying buddy, sets out to capture Mattani and his distributors in England. The ending is pretty exciting as Stenning flies after the drug running plane, and then pins down the villains by flying low over them until the police arrive.
  Shute was a bit ashamed of this work (as he was most of his early work) but that is just literary ego. It’s a fine piece, located firmly in its time so that its out datedness only adds to the charm, but it’s right to the mark with modern thinking on drug-running and the future of aviation. Eighty years later, it is as relevant and readable as any contemporary thriller