Bruce, Leo - Case for Three Detectives (1936)

Leo Bruce's Case for 3 Detectives is also clever - easily the best book Bruce ever wrote. (I've read a few of the Carolus Deenes recently, and haven't enjoyed them - plodding detection, recycled plots, and an absence of characterisation and charm - surprising when Croft-Cooke was a novelist.) This one is the complete opposite of the Deenes - it's amusing and well paced. It spoofs the characters of Poirot, Wimsey and (brilliantly) Father Brown (who has an obsession about the evils of Protestantism), but also their approach to detection. The Sayers solution is a very tricky and complex method, like Busman's Honeymoon; the Christie involves two lovers plotting a murder, and giving themselves a hidden alibi; and the Chesterton is psychologically cruel and horrible. Very perceptive.

Nick Fuller

See also http://at-scene-of-crime.blogspot.com/2011/05/nobody-invited-fourth-detective.html