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Inspector French
Inspector Joseph French is a fictional British police detective created by Irish author Freeman Wills Crofts. French was a prominent detective from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, appearing in twenty-nine novels and a number of short stories between 1924 and 1957. The character was introduced in the 1924 novel '' Inspector French's Greatest Case'', where he investigates a fatal diamond robbery in Hatton Garden. The series relied largely on puzzle mysteries. Overview French was a prominent detective from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, appearing in twenty nine novels and a number of short stories between 1924 and 1957. French is a Scotland Yard detective, whose methodical technique breaks down complex alibis. Over the course of the series, he is promoted to Chief Inspector and the later to Superintendent. His manner is courteous, he is happily married and has no major problems in his private life. Novels * '' Inspector French's Greatest Case'' (1924) * '' The Cheyne ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Inspector French's Greatest Case
''Inspector French's Greatest Case'' is a 1924 mystery detective novel by Freeman Wills Crofts. It in his series of novels featuring Inspector French, a Scotland Yard detective of the Golden Age known for his methodical technique.Herbert p.76 Like much of the following series the plot mixes the traditional form of the puzzle mystery with that of a police procedural. French has to carefully study railway and shipping timetables and crack a cipher in order to solve his case. Synopsis A robbery of the safe of a diamond merchant in London's Hatton Garden leaves one of the firm's veteran employees dead. Summoned to handle the case French pursues disparate clues over a number of weeks with some of the trails turning out to be dead ends. His travels take him from the capital to Southampton and a variety of destinations on the Continent including Amsterdam, the Swiss Alps, Barcelona and Le Havre. Eventually he believes he has hit on the solution: a former West End actress has adopte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sudden Death (novel)
''Sudden Death'' is a 1932 detective novel by the Irish writer Freeman Wills Crofts. It is the eighth in his series of novels featuring Inspector French, a prominent figure of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction.Evans p.168 Synopsis After a period out of work Anne Day is employed as Housekeeper (domestic worker), housekeeper for the Grinsmead family in Kent. At first the well paid job is seemingly idyllic for the young woman, as there is comparatively little work and the setting of the house in picturesque. She gets on well with the other employees including Edith the governess. Mr. Grimstead, a solicitor is in London much of the day while his wife Sybil takes very little interest in Anne's work. Things dramatically change when Sybil confides to Anne that she believes her husband may be plotting to kill her, due to his desire to leave her for another woman. Although Sybil is apparently neurotic and paranoid, Anne has witnessed her husband's discreet dalliances with a married lady ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Tarrant, Adventurer
''James Tarrant, Adventurer'' is a 1941 detective novel by the Irish-born writer Freeman Wills Crofts. It is the twenty-first in his series of novels featuring Chief Inspector French of Scotland Yard, written during the Golden Age of Detective Fiction. Published in Britain by Hodder and Stoughton, it was released in America by Dodd Mead under the alternative title ''Circumstantial Evidence''. It was one of a number of novels by Crofts during the period which portray overly acquisitive businessman in a bad light and constitutes an attack on patent medicines.Evans p.251 Synopsis James Tarrant, a ruthlessly ambitious young man working as an assistant in a chemist shop, hatches a radical plan. He will set up in private business and produce indigestion remedies to be sold over the counter. While harmless they do relatively little to justify the large price that is charged, containing magnesium and a few other ingredients. This is a similar scheme to that of a rival group Braxamin, w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Golden Ashes (novel)
''Golden Ashes'' is a 1940 detective novel by the Irish writer Freeman Wills Crofts. It is the twentieth in his series of novels featuring Inspector French, a prominent investigator of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction.Evans p.148 Synopsis Following her husband's death that has left her in financial difficulties, Betty Stanton takes the post of housekeeper at Forde Manor in Surrey. Forde Manor has recently been inherited along with a baronetcy by Sir Geoffrey Buller. Buller has spent most of his life living in Chicago where he has been a property speculator. Frustrated by his attempts to try and ingratiate himself into local high society Buller decides to sell his property and move to the Continent. Everything in the house is sold off and removed apart from the valuable art collection. One evening Stanton discovers the building is on fire, and her efforts to save the paintings is largely unsuccessful. This and the discovery shortly afterwards of the body of an art expert wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fatal Venture
''Fatal Venture'' is a 1939 detective novel by the Irish writer Freeman Wills Crofts. It is the nineteenth in his series of novels featuring Chief Inspector French of Scotland Yard, a prominent investigator of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction.Evans p.148 It was released in the United States by Dodd Mead under the alternative title ''Tragedy in the Hollow''. Synopsis On a train to Calais completing the final leg of a foreign tour, one of the passengers approaches Harry Morrison, the employee of the travel agency leading the party. He has an idea to create a company that provides cruise ship tours around the British Isles aimed at passengers on lower incomes who cannot afford expensive foreign travel. After some research, Morrison believes it is a viable scheme. However as they both lack the necessary finances, they approach one of the clients of the travel agency, the millionaire John Stott. Stott agrees to put up the money to acquire a transatlantic liner about to be broken up f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antidote To Venom
''Antidote to Venom'' is a 1938 detective novel by the Irish-born novelist Freeman Wills Crofts. It is the eighteenth in his series of novels featuring Inspector French, a Scotland Yard detective known for his methodical technique.Evans p.177 It was reissued in 2015 by the British Library Publishing as part of a group of crime novels from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction. Plot The novel takes the form of an inverted detective story following the concerns of George Surridge, director of the Birmington Zoo A zoo (short for zoological garden; also called an animal park or menagerie) is a facility in which animals are kept within enclosures for public exhibition and often bred for conservation purposes. The term ''zoological garden'' refers to zoo ... whose financial troubles and unhappy marriage drive him towards contemplating a murder that could miraculously turn his fortunes around. An outlandish method of killing will relieve him of all his troubles. The arrival of the th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The End Of Andrew Harrison
''The End of Andrew Harrison'' is a 1938 detective novel by Freeman Wills Crofts. It is the seventeenth in his series of novels featuring Inspector French, a Scotland Yard detective of the Golden Age known for his methodical technique. The title character closely resembles Sigsbee Manderson, the murder victim of E.C. Bentley's celebrated 1913 novel ''Trent's Last Case''.Evans p.182 Synopsis Few are prepared to shed a tear about the death of the ruthless financier An investor is a person who allocates financial capital with the expectation of a future return (profit) or to gain an advantage (interest). Through this allocated capital most of the time the investor purchases some species of property. Type ... Andrew Harrison aboard his houseboat at Henley. However the initial conclusion of suicide fails to convince French, who investigates and searches for the hidden link for what he believes is a case of murder. References Bibliography * Evans, Curtis. ''Masters of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Found Floating
''Found Floating'' is a 1937 detective novel by the Irish writer Freeman Wills Crofts. It is the sixteenth in his series of novels featuring Inspector French, a Scotland Yard detective of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, Golden Age known for his methodical technique.Evans p.41 References Bibliography * Evans, Curtis. ''Masters of the "Humdrum" Mystery: Cecil John Charles Street, Freeman Wills Crofts, Alfred Walter Stewart and the British Detective Novel, 1920-1961''. McFarland, 2014. * Herbert, Rosemary. ''Whodunit?: A Who's Who in Crime & Mystery Writing''. Oxford University Press, 2003. * Reilly, John M. ''Twentieth Century Crime & Mystery Writers''. Springer, 2015. 1937 British novels Novels by Freeman Wills Crofts British crime novels British mystery novels British thriller novels British detective novels Hodder & Stoughton books Irish mystery novels Irish crime novels Novels set in London Novels set in Scotland Novels set in Birmingham, West Midlands Novels set i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Man Overboard!
''Man Overboard!'' (also known as ''Cold-Blooded Murder'') is a detective novel by Freeman Wills Crofts, first published in 1936. It is the fifteenth novel in the Inspector French series. The book is set largely in Northern Ireland, and re-uses two of the characters from the earlier novel ''Sir John Magill's Last Journey'' (1930) which was set in the same country. As a MacGuffin, the novel centres on a supposedly newly discovered (though possibly fraudulent) reversible chemical process that converts petrol Gasoline (; ) or petrol (; ) (see ) is a transparent, petroleum-derived flammable liquid that is used primarily as a fuel in most spark-ignited internal combustion engines (also known as petrol engines). It consists mostly of organic c ... into an inert form which is much safer for transport and storage. The potential commercial value of this discovery leads to intrigue, theft and murder, with everything finally solved by Inspector French after his usual dogged le ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Loss Of The Jane Vosper
''The Loss of the Jane Vosper'' (also written as ''The Loss of the 'Jane Vosper) is a 1936 detective novel by Freeman Wills Crofts. It is the fourteenth in his series of novels featuring Inspector French, a Scotland Yard detective of the Golden Age known for his thorough technique. It particularly dwells on the process of police procedure.Evans, p. 160. Comparing the novel to Margery Allingham's latest release ''Flowers for the Judge'' in his review for ''The Spectator'', Cecil Day-Lewis writing under his pen name of Nicholas Blake commented "Mr. Crofts’s new book is excellent too. The loss at sea of the ''Jane Vosper'', holed by mysterious explosions in the cargo, is so vividly described, indeed, that the sequel seems a little flat". Synopsis During a trip from England to South America, the cargo ship ''Jane Vosper'' suffers from four mysterious explosions in her hull and the crew abandon ship shortly before she sinks. The insurance company covering an expensive part of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crime At Guildford
''Crime at Guildford'' is a 1935 detective novel by the writer Freeman Wills Crofts.Reilly p.396 Crofts was a leading figure of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction and often set his novels in Surrey where he lived close to Guildford. It was the thirteenth in a series of novels featuring Inspector French. It was published in America by Dodd Mead under the alternative title ''The Crime at Nornes''. Synopsis The accountant of a large but struggling firm of jewellers is murdered while attending a meeting at the managing director A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...'s house near Guildford, while at the same time a large robbery takes place at the firm's offices on Kingsway. References Bibliography * Evans, Curtis. ''Masters of the "Humdrum" Mystery: Cecil John Charles S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mystery On Southampton Water
''Mystery on Southampton Water'' is a 1934 detective novel by the Irish writer Freeman Wills Crofts. It was the twelfth in a series of novels featuring Inspector French and takes the form of an inverted detective story, the second Crofts wrote that year after ''The 12.30 from Croydon''.Evans p.166 It was published in America by Dodd Mead under the alternative title ''Crime on the Solent''. Synopsis A cement-producing company based near Hamble discover that a rival across the Solent near Cowes on the Isle of Wight has begun producing cement with a new formula that is undercutting them and threatening their financial recovery from the Great Depression. Two members cross over to steal the formula one night but accidentally kill a night watchman who disturbs them. They disguise the killing as a car accident, and have already established alibis to cover the robbery and so hope to hear no more about it. With the stolen formula their company begins preparations to start producing the ne ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |