From http://www.geocities.com/bevis1uk/Rhode.htm

The most appropriate description of this 1941 effort from the prolific pen of CJC Street is middling, since it not only comes approximately halfway among his Dr. Priestley mysteries, but is of a quality which fails to place it amongst his best works, though it fortunately ranks higher than some of the weakest of his later offerings.

Here, series regular Inspector Waghorn, seconded from Scotland Yard into the intelligence services to aid the war effort, finds himself in the rural community of Hoxdown, where enemy bombing has disrupted the highly secretive work of a group of men in the local wood. It seems clear that someone is signalling to guide the bombers to their target from the neighbourhood, but no trace can be found on the ground. Waghorn finds his old cohort Supt Hanslet living in the village under an assumed name, having been sent there months earlier to investigate fifth column activity. Then, the charred remains of the local Chief Constable are found in the ashes of his burnt out summer house and the mystery deepens as all the indications point to murder. Soon the pair invoke the aid of Dr Priestley, at this stage still vigorous enough to leave his house on Westbourne Terrace and help his old associates.

Unsurprisingly, as a writer who had a long career in the armed forces, Rhode is always strong on the military background to the story and those aspects of the book are well done. Unfortunately the mystery element doesn’t manage to raise the book to classic status. Priestley solves the signalling aspect quite cleverly, with a nice trick, which relies on the physics of light. However, the solution to the murder is rather dropped in the lap of the investigators, and the motive emerges from the distant past, with a criminal who is a minor character until the very end.

This is not a mystery which should be at the very top of the wants list of anyone seeking to expand their collection of this author, though it may prove easier to track down than some of his more elusive books.

R E Faust