Warner's first three novels all reflect his anti-fascist beliefs; "The Wild Goose Chase" is in part a dystopian fantasy about the overthrow of a tyrannical government in a heroic revolution. His second novel, "The Professor", published around the time of the Nazi Anschluss, is the story of a liberal academic whose compromises with a repressive government lead eventually to his arrest, imprisonment and murder "while attempting to escape". Contemporary reviewers saw parallels with the Austrian leaders Engelbert Dollfuss and Kurt Schuschnigg.