''Fire Below'' is a 1930 adventure novel by the English author

Dornford Yates Cecil William Mercer (7 August 1885 – 5 March 1960), known by his pen name Dornford Yates, was an English writer and novelist whose novels and short stories, some humorous (the ''Berry'' books), some Thriller (genre), thrillers (the ''Chandos ...

(Cecil William Mercer), the fourth in his '' Chandos'' thriller series and a sequel to ''

Blood Royal A royal descent is a genealogy, genealogical Kinship and descent, line of descent from a past or present monarch. Both geneticists and genealogists have attempted to estimate the percentage of living people with royal descent. From a genetic ...

''. The book was published in the US under the title ''By Royal Command''.

Plot

Chandos and Hanbury are lured back to the fictional Principality of Riechtenburg by a forged telegram.

Background

In this novel, the author continued to mine ideas from

Anthony Hope Sir Anthony Hope Hawkins, better known as Anthony Hope (9 February 1863 – 8 July 1933), was a British novelist and playwright. He was a prolific writer, especially of adventure novels but he is remembered predominantly for only two books: ''Th ...

, specifically ''

Rupert of Hentzau ''Rupert of Hentzau'' is a sequel by Anthony Hope to ''The Prisoner of Zenda'', written in 1895 but not published in book form until 1898. The novel was serialized in ''The Pall Mall Magazine'' and ''McClure's Magazine'' from December 1897 thr ...

''. Commenting in 1958 through his character Boy Pleydell, Mercer acknowledged resemblances between his work and that of Hope, particularly mentioning ''Fire Below'' and ''

''.

Critical reception

The ''Chandos'' series had made the name of Dornford Yates widely known, and ''Fire Below'' was as received as eagerly when it appeared in June 1930 as his earlier ''Chandos'' books had been. The original dustjacket included the following quotes - *

Frank Swinnerton Frank Arthur Swinnerton (12 August 1884 – 6 November 1982) was an English novelist, critic, biographer and essayist. He was the author of more than 50 books, and as a publisher's editor helped other writers including Aldous Huxley and Lytton S ...

in the ''

Evening News Evening News may refer to: Television news *''CBS Evening News'', an American news broadcast *''ITV Evening News'', a UK news broadcast *'' JNN Evening News'', a Japanese news broadcast *''Evening News'', an alternate name for '' News Hour'' in so ...

'' - "It is tremendously competent, exciting and quick moving." * '' John o' London's Weekly'' - "Mr. Dornford Yates adds another volume to the astounding adventures of Richard Chandos. The book is packed with rapid incident. Mr. Yates' invention is amazing- there is no other word for it...here Mr. Yates is at his very best." * ''

Queen Queen or QUEEN may refer to: Monarchy * Queen regnant, a female monarch of a Kingdom ** List of queens regnant * Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king * Queen dowager, the widow of a king * Queen mother, a queen dowager who is the mother ...

'' - "Amazingly good." * ''

Yorkshire Post ''The Yorkshire Post'' is a daily broadsheet newspaper, published in Leeds in Yorkshire, England. It primarily covers stories from Yorkshire although its masthead carries the slogan "Yorkshire's National Newspaper". It was previously owned by ...

'' - Mr. Dornford Yates takes my breath away."

References

Bibliography

* 1930 British novels Hodder & Stoughton books Novels by Dornford Yates Novels set in fictional countries British thriller novels {{1930s-thriller-novel-stub