Wartime fiction

sir – War novels are not only about war (Letters, August 22.) Plenty Under

the Counter is a whodunnit set in London bedsitter-land during the Blitz. Its author, Kathleen Hewitt, modestly prophesied that her work would survive not for its literary merit, but as a social document.

Originally published on thin war-economy paper in 1943, it has now been reissued by the Imperial War Museum as part of its new Wartime Classics fiction series. Eddie Lewisohn

London N6