[In An Indecent Obsession, the] second world war is winding down. On an unidentified island in the Pacific, in a hospital to which wounded Australian soldiers have been evacuated is a special ward—Ward X—reserved exclusively for those soldiers whose wounds are not physical but psychological. They are "troppo," the Australian word for soldiers who have broken under the stresses of warfare….

Sister (Australian for nurse) Honour Langtry, a 30-year-old unmarried woman from an upper-middle-class Australian family, is in charge of Ward X. Since the ward is physically separated from the rest of the hospital and since there is no staff psychiatrist, Honour takes, by default, full responsibility for the five patients who remain there as the war ends and the book begins….

To this relatively stable mini-world, another patient, Sergeant Michael Wilson, is introduced. As the reader might guess, Wilson upsets the precarious balance….

An Indecent...