''Peril at Cranbury Hall'' is a 1930
detective novel
Detective fiction is a subgenre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator or a detective—whether professional, amateur or retired—investigates a crime, often murder. The detective genre began around the same time as s ...
by
John Rhode
Cecil John Charles Street (3 May 1884 – 8 December 1964), who was known to his colleagues, family and friends as John Street, began his military career as an artillery officer in the British Army. During the course of World War I, he became a ...
, the
pen name
A pen name, also called a ''nom de plume'' or a literary double, is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name.
A pen na ...
of the British writer Cecil Street. It marked the eight appearances of the
armchair detective
An armchair detective is a fictional investigator who does not personally visit a crime scene or interview witnesses; instead, the detective either reads the story of the crime in a newspaper or has it recounted by another person. As the armcha ...
Lancelot Priestley
Dr. Lancelot Priestley is a fictional investigator born in July 1869 in a series of books by John Rhode
After 1924, Dr. Priestley took over from Dr. Thorndyke as the leading fictional forensic investigator in Britain, and featured in 72 novels ...
, who featured in a long-running series of novels during the
Golden Age of Detective Fiction
The Golden Age of Detective Fiction was an era of classic murder mystery novels of similar patterns and styles, predominantly in the 1920s and 1930s.
The Golden Age proper is, in practice, usually taken to refer to a type of fiction which was pre ...
. The use of the
cipher
In cryptography, a cipher (or cypher) is an algorithm for performing encryption or decryption—a series of well-defined steps that can be followed as a procedure. An alternative, less common term is ''encipherment''. To encipher or encode i ...
inspired a similar one used in
Dorothy L. Sayers
Dorothy Leigh Sayers (; 13 June 1893 – 17 December 1957) was an English crime writer and poet. She was also a student of classical and modern languages.
She is best known for her mysteries, a series of novels and short stories set between th ...
's ''
Have His Carcase''
[Sandberg p.55]
Synopsis
An expensive new clinic is established at Cranbury Hall treating patients for fatigue with an innovative technique. Oliver Gilroy, the brother of one of the clinic's backers, is released from gaol and takes over a key role at the lucrative institution. However a series of attempts of his life draw the interest of Priestley.
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.
* Sandberg, Eric. ''Dorothy L. Sayers: A Companion to the Mystery Fiction''. McFarland, 2022.
1930 British novels
Novels by Cecil Street
British crime novels
British mystery novels
British thriller novels
British detective novels
Geoffrey Bles books
Novels set in England
Novels set in Belgium
Dodd, Mead & Co. books
{{1930s-crime-novel-stub