Set mostly in the prewar German spa town of Nauheim, the story concerns Edward Ashburnham, a first-rate soldier and a perfect English gentleman whose single and fatal flaw is his blind ruthlessness in affairs of love. Ashburnham's marriage and all of his relationships are corrupted by his passion and the deceits that disguise it; and our only window on the strange tangle of events surrounding Ashburnham is provided by his friend, the American husband he deceives. It was the creation of this cuckolded, innocent narrator burdened with the need to unravel the impressions and deceits of the good soldier that established Ford's preeminent place among twentieth-century novelists. Today, The Good Soldier stands as one of the most extraordinary tales of passion and betrayal ever told.