The Small Back Room - Nigel Balchin

Sammy Rice is a weapons scientist, one of the “back room boys’ of the Second World War. A crippling disability has left him cynical and disillusioned; he struggles against a drink problem at home, and politics and petty pride at work. Worse still, he fears he is not good enough for the woman he loves.

But the enemy are dropping a new type of booby bomb, causing many casualties. Only Sammy has the know-how to defuse it – and as he comes face to face with real danger, a bomb which has blown apart braver and better men than he, all the old inadequacies return to haunt him… Can he, at last, prove his worth, and put his demons to rest?

A true twentieth century classic novel, The Small Back Room is equally famous in the 1948 film adaptation.