Clifford Witting (1907-68) was an English writer. He was educated at Eltham College London and served in the Royal Artillery and the Ordinance Corps during WW2. He married Ellen Marjorie Steward in 1934 and worked as a clerk in Lloyds bank from 1924 to 1942. His series characters were Sergeant (later Inspector) Peter Bradfield and Inspector Harry Charlton.
Why is Witting so obscure? His detection is genuinely engrossing, and his style is witty, if occasionally facetious. He could do setting very well—Army life in
Subject: Murder. His books have the genuine whodunit pull. He can brilliantly misdirect the reader (
Midsummer Murder) or invent a genuinely clever and simple murder method (
Dead on Time). He experimented with form: the surprise victim (whowillbedunin?) of
Measure for Murder, or, weak as it is otherwise is, the riff on the inverted detective story in
The Case of the Michaelmas Goose. In short, he always has something to offer the reader, and found original ideas within the conventions of the formal detective story.
And yet he’s barely known—no entry in 20th Crime and Mystery Writers, and only a passing reference in the Oxford guide. Only treated in detail in Cooper and Pike, and in Barzun.
Didn’t join Detection Club until 1958.
Nick Fuller.
Bibliography
Murder in Blue (1937)
Midsummer Murder (1937)
The Case of the Michaelmas Goose (1938)
Catt Out of the Bag (1939)
Measure for Murder (1941)
Subject: Murder (1945)
Let X Be the Murderer (1947)
Dead on Time (1948)
A Bullet for Rhino (1950)
The Case of the Busy Bees (1952)
Silence After Dinner (1953)
Mischief in the Offing (1958)
There Was a Crooked Man (1960)
Driven to Kill (1961)
Villainous Saltpetre (1962)
Crime in Whispers (1964)
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