It's a Battlefield

An “adventurous . . . intelligent . . . ingenious” novel of crime and punishment in pre–World War II London (V. S. Pritchett).
 
During a demonstration in Hyde Park, Communist bus driver Jim Drover acts on instinct to protect his wife by stabbing to death the policeman set to strike her down. Sentenced to hang—whether as a martyr, tool, or murderer—Drover accepts his lot, unaware that the ramifica...