''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 Scotland Yard (officially New Scotland Yard) is the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police, the territorial police force responsible for policing Greater London's 32 boroughs, but not the City of London, the square mile that forms London's ...

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 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 thorough Chief Inspector French from London, intrigued by the case, threatens this perfect crime. French believes he knows who committed the murder but has to work out how.

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. 1938 British novels Novels by Freeman Wills Crofts British crime novels British mystery novels British thriller novels British detective novels Hodder & Stoughton books Novels set in England Irish mystery novels Irish crime novels {{1930s-crime-novel-stub