A Losing Game

Rating:
Summary: Curl up by the fire and enjoy a good detective yarn.
Review: Albert Reeve, money lender and blackmailer, is found dead in his house by one of his clients, Tony Meadows. When subsequently Reeve's house is partly destroyed by fire, Tony is charged with the blackmailer's murder. Among those hoping desperately to prove Tony's innocence is his sister, and she seeks the assistance of Inspector French.

In his 1941 "curl up by the fire and enjoy a good detective yarn" production, Freeman Wills Crofts leads his reader from a presentation of the crime, on to the accusation of the wrong man, through an investigation of all suspects, to the breaking of an apparently cast-iron alibi, and to the final "thriller" capture. Young Tony is a budding detective fiction writer, and Freeman Wills Crofts throws in along the way a few insights into the craft of which he himself was a master.

English publishers, The House of Stratus, have republished this novel in the year 2000 as part of their complete edition of the detective fiction works of Freeman Wills Crofts. The format, the art deco cover art work, and the print and paper quality are uniformly excellent. It seems strange that, in presenting these minor classics from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, the House of Stratus does not provide a first publication date.

Rating:
Summary: Curl up by the fire and enjoy a good detective yarn
Review: Albert Reeve, money lender and blackmailer, is found dead in his house by one of his clients, Tony Meadows. When subsequently Reeve's house is partly destroyed by fire, Tony is charged with the blackmailer's murder. Among those hoping desperately to prove Tony's innocence is his sister, and she seeks the assistance of Inspector French. In his 1941 "curl up by the fire and enjoy a good detective yarn" production, Freeman Wills Crofts leads his reader from a presentation of the crime, on to the accusation of the wrong man, through an investigation of all suspects, to the breaking of an apparently cast-iron alibi, and to the final "thriller" capture. Young Tony is a budding detective fiction writer, and Freeman Wills Crofts throws in along the way a few insights into the craft of which he himself was a master. English publishers, The House of Stratus, have republished this novel in the year 2000 as part of their complete edition of the detective fiction works of Freeman Wills Crofts. The format, the art deco cover art work, and the print and paper quality are uniformly excellent. It seems strange that, in presenting these minor classics from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, the House of Stratus does not provide a first publication date.