Freeman Wills Crofts

We begin with a body. Andrew Crowther, a wealthy retired manufacturer, is found dead in his seat on the 12.30 flight from Croydon to Paris....

The unloading of a consignment of French wine from the steamship Bullfinch is interrupted by a gruesome discovery in a broken cask leaking sawdust and gold sovereigns. But when the shipping clerk returns with the police, the cask and its macabre contents have gone....

When Dr Earle disappears from his cottage, Inspector French is called in to investigate....

George Surridge, director of the Birmington Zoo, is a man with many worries....

When a signalman discovers a mutilated body inside a railway tunnel near Groote Park, it seems to be a straightforward case of a man struck by a passing train....

A late-night murder of a diamond merchant’s veteran employee in London’s Hatton Gardens has Scotland Yard calling on Inspector French to investigate. When French gets there he finds not only the victim but missing diamonds and money from an open safe....

From the Collins Crime Club archive, the third standalone novel by Freeman Wills Crofts, dubbed 'The King of Detective Story Writers'....