Blurbs for Francis Beeding Mysteries

(Note: Books are listed alphabetically.)

Death Walks in Eastrepps (1931)

by Francis Beeding

Dover Books (1980)

Cover price: $4.00

'Death Walks in Eastrepps begins quietly -- almost too quietly. Robert Eldridge is returning to Eastrepps on the London train for his customary Wednesday night tryst with Margaret Withers. At the same time Miss Mary Hewitt is sitting down to dinner with her brother James. Later that night she will make her usual visit to Mrs. Dampier at Tamarisk House. As she leaves to go home, nothing is out of the ordinary. But Mary Hewitt doesn't reach home that night, and her corpse is found the next day in a little wood just off the path she would normally take. A brutal murderer -- soon called the Eastrepps Evil -- is on the loose.

'The Eastrepps Evil is a phrase coined by vacationing newspaperman William Ferris; might he also be the Evil? Or is the murderer Robert Eldridge, who with cold calculation carried on a six-months' affair with Margaret Withers in order to establish the perfect alibi? Or the shiftless Dick Coldfoot, who is blackmailing Eldridge? Or Alistair Rockingham, who has an eye for the ladies and certain compulsions that go beyond merely tipping his hat? Or is it someone else in the formerly sleepy seaside village of Eastrepps?

'Francis Beeding is the pseudonymn of two Englishmen -- John Leslie (1885-1944) and Hilary Aidan St. George Saunders (1898-1951). Of the many mystery and spy novels they wrote together, Death Walks in Eastrepps is acknowledged by mystery critics and enthusiasts alike to be the book for which they will be best remembered. Written with uncommon flair and skill, it is universally regarded as a masterpiece of the mystery genre.'

"One of the ten greatest detective novels of all time." -- Vincent Starrett, author of The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes