| The Lifeline | |
| Author: | Phyllis Bottome |
| Country: | United Kingdom |
| Language: | English |
| Genre: | Thriller |
| Publisher: | Faber and Faber |
| Release Date: | 1946 |
| Media Type: | |
The Lifeline (sometimes written as The Life-Line) is a 1946 thriller novel by the British writer Phyllis Bottome.[1] It has been suggested as a direct influence on Ian Fleming, who had once attended a school run by Bottome, and his later creation of the James Bond stories. Equally the protagonist Mark Chalmers may have been partly based on Fleming himself.[2] It was the only spy novel written by Bottome.[3]
An Eton schoolmaster heading off on his annual visit to the Austrian Alps, which has recently been annexed by Germany agrees to a casual request from a Foreign Office friend to carry a message to the country. Before long he finds himself embroiled in the anti-Nazi resistance and targeted by the Gestapo.