Biggles and Ginger parachute into Lucrania, a small country behind the iron curtain and basically run by Germany, to try and uncover the whereabouts of an important scientist.

Heading up the Lucranian Secret Police at the time is the old foe Erich Von Stalhein. Through a few plot twists, including a cross-dressing son of the Professor - now that's a first for a Biggles book - the team manage to thwart Erich and save the day. What's more they manage to do it using Erich's own gear, first stealing his gun and then his car to help with their escape. You begin to wonder how Von Stalhein keeps being given these plum jobs when he fails so miserably when Biggles is around.

Biggles does like to lay on the drama a bit thick. Describing the task as involving "no less than the safety of the nation", he then scares poor Algy and Ginger half to death with stories of poison gas and "terrorisation of the world" before ringing for tea:

..the statement that we're all likely to be gassed to death in the near future suggests that we should make the most of things while the going's good.