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Inspector French and the Cheyne Mystery

Page history last edited by J F Norris 13 years, 2 months ago Saved with comment

Crofts, Freeman Wills -- Inspector French and the Cheyne Mystery (1926)

 

An early Crofts, and -- like the early Doyles -- more concerned with the picaresque adventures of its young hero than with the detective process. Maxwell Cheyne is sent an envelope for safekeeping by a friend and promptly forgets all about it. He is drugged and searched at a hotel and his house is burgled, but it is not until Cheyne himself is kidnapped and threatened with starvation that he manages to recall the envelope. He extracts it from a bank and it passes into the hands of the criminals, but by a smart piece of detective work and some intensive cycling, Cheyne is able to pursue them and establish their location.

 

Unfortunately this is about the last smart thing he does, and there follows a string of defeats at the hands of the gang. It's only when his new-found love Joan Merrill becomes their captor that Cheyne does what he ought to have done in the first place, and goes to Inspector French. Strings are pulled, the police move into action, and the final -- rather anti-climactic -- confrontation comes on a ship in the Mid-Atlantic. French does his best to redeem the book from his starting-point two-thirds of the way in, but it would have been much better with more French and less Cheyne. The writing is well up to Crofts's usual standard, though.

 

A mysterious chart and some other puzzling documents are reproduced in this (Collins Crime Club) edition for those who want to test their wits against French, although I suspect the puzzles are too arbitrary to solve other than by luck.

 

Jon.

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