Drink To Yesterday Manning Coles by Manning Coles 9781601870148, 1601870140 instant download after payment.

First published in England in 1940 and in the U.S. in 1941, this novel introduced series character Tommy Hambledon but the center stage is occupied by a young British spy whose adventrues were based on the life of one of the two collaborators, Cyril Coles, who was the youngest intelligence officer in the history of the British Secret Service. It's a grim, realistic spy story set during World War I framed within an inverted detective story. Coles, along with Eric Ambler, is credited with creating the modern espionage novel.
Michael Kingston had a gift for languages, and at 17 enlisted and was drafted into the secret service, under Hambledon. They engineered the murder of a scientist breeding cholera germs, the arson of a Zepp plant, and the murder of Bodenheim. The death of Hambledon and of a German girl brought the wheel of murder full circle, and Kingston found himself haunted by blue devils when the Armistice came, unable to come to grips with himself or life.