Freeman Wills Crofts
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Seymour Merriman, the junior partner in a firm of London wine merchants, is traveling by motorcycle from Avignon to Bordeaux when his vacation grinds to a sudden halt. Out of gas, he follows a passing truck to a mill where an English firm manufactures pit-prop supports for coal mines. He's given two liters of gas and is about to depart when he notices something peculiar - the truck he followed was marked No. 4, but now it's labelled No. 3. His curiosity...
2) The Cask
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While London dockworkers are struggling to unload a shipment of French wine, one of the heavy casks falls, shatters and reveals its cargo-sawdust, gold coins, and a female corpse. But by the time the police arrive, the barrel has vanished along with its macabre contents. Enter Inspector Burnley of Scotland Yard, who traces the cask to Paris, where he enlists the help of detective M. Lefarge of the Sûreté. Together, they hunt for the identity of...
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Considered one of Freeman Wills Crofts best works, Inspector French's Greatest Case was first published in 1925. It was selected by Howard Haycraft to be one of the works included in the ultimate mystery list: The Haycraft-Queen Definitive Library of Detective-Crime-Mystery Fiction, Two Centuries of Cornerstones 1748-1948. Unlike other mystery writers who have made the police appear to be incompetent, Crofts has given us the brilliant Inspector French,...
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The Chichester is making a routine journey across the English Channel on a pleasant afternoon in June, when the steamer's crew notice something strange. A yacht, bobbing about in the water ahead of them, appears to have been abandoned, and there is a dark red stain on the deck... Two bodies later, with no sign of a gun, there certainly is a mystery in the channel. Inspector French soon discovers a world of high-powered banking, luxury yachts and international...
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Dr. James Earle and his wife live in comfortable seclusion near the Hog's Back, a ridge in the North Downs in the beautiful Surrey countryside. When Dr. Earle disappears from his cottage, Inspector French is called in to investigate. At first he suspects a simple domestic intrigue…and begins to uncover a web of romantic entanglements beneath the couple's peaceful rural life. The case soon takes a more complex turn. Other people vanish mysteriously,...
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In a country hotel Maxwell Cheyne sits down to lunch with the pleasant stranger he has just met. Then, as the meal ends, he sinks into a drugged sleep and, on waking, learns that his house has been burgled (though nothing is missing)... This is only the first of his encounters with a gang of very persistent criminals. But what are they after? It falls to Inspector French of Scotland Yard to expose their desperate and unguessable conspiracy.
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The lonely old house in Starvel Hollow stands as usual one evening. The next morning it is a heap of smouldering ruins. When the almost cremated remains of its three inmates are discovered an inquest is held and a verdict of accidental death arrived at. However, some weeks later an incident occurs which arouses suspicion in a bank manager and Inspector French is called in.
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The Sea Mystery is a 1928 detective novel by Freeman Wills Crofts. It is the fourth in a series of novels featuring Inspector French of Scotland Yard. As with a number of his works Crofts creates a puzzling mystery which French is then able to solve using a Tide table and Bradshaw's Guide to the railways.
10) The Ponson Case
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From the Collins Crime Club archive, the forgotten second novel by Freeman Wills Crofts, once dubbed 'The King of Detective Story Writers'. When the body of Sir William Ponson is found in the Cranshaw River near his home of Luce Manor, it is assumed to be an accident – until the evidence points to murder.
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George Surridge, director of the Birmington Zoo, is a man with many worries: his marriage is collapsing; his finances are insecure; and an outbreak of disease threatens the animals in his care. As Surridge's debts mount and the pressure on him increases, he begins to dream of miracle solutions. But is he cunning enough to turn his dreams into reality - and could he commit the most devious murder in pursuit of his goals? This ingenious crime novel,...