Connington, JJ - The Two Tickets Puzzle / The Two Ticket Puzzle (1930)

Review by Nick Fuller

2/5

Run-of-the-mill and Croftsian Connington, even down to the railway time-tables. Despite the presence of the wife’s lover and an employer with a grudge on the 10.35 train where Oswald F. Preston was shot dead, and complications in the form of a prize-ram and a stolen car, the murderer is obvious from his first appearance, and the red herrings stink to high heaven. The chief interest of Superintendent Ross’s methodical but not enthralling detection is in seeing the obvious truth unfold. The significance of the two (first-class return) tickets is revealed at once, and science is only present in the typewritten documents (used to better effect in The Sweepstake Murders). There is a fine car chase at the end, but the reader may still find the motive unconvincing and wonder what would have happened when Madge Winslow came into her inheritance.

Note that Dorothy L. Sayers borrowed the central idea for Five Red Herrings (1931).