Destination Unknown

Hilary Craven has lost the will to live, Mrs Betterton is already dead. Then Hilary is asked to impersonate the dead woman and to trace her husband - a missing nuclear scientist - and her will to live returns. A faked air disaster, a string of radio-active pearls, a leper colony floundering in the dry heat of the Morroccan desert. Hilary is lead towards a terrifying discovery and her new found enthusiasm for life turns into ice-cold fear...

Year: 1954
Location: Middle East

Cast of characters

Alcadi, Mr. Aristides, Mrs. Calvin Baker, Dr. Louis Barron, Olive and Thomas Betterton, Hilary Craven, Herr Director, Torquil Ericsson, R. Evans, Major Boris Andrei Pavlov Glydr, Walter Griffiths, Janet Hetherington, Miss Jennson, Mr. Jessop, Mademoiselle La Roche, Henri Laurier, Monsieur Leblanc, Dr. Mark Lucas, Professor Mannheim, Mohammed, Bianca Murchison, Dr. Simon Murchison, Helga Needheim, Andrew Peters, Dr. Rubec, Carol Speeder, Paul Van Heidem, Colonel Wharton

Publishing history

Publishing: First published in 1954 by William Collins Sons & Co. in London, and as 'So Many Steps to Death' in 1955 by Dodd, Mead & Co. in New York. The novel has not been adapted for stage or screen.

Notes and reviews

The novel was written at a time when several espionage cases were making the headlines. One involved Bruno Pontecorvo and Klaus Emil Fuchs: two physicists who betrayed their countries to work for Communist Russia.

Murder methods:

One Poisoning.

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