Chestermarke Instinct

When bank manager John Hornbury disappears, so do securities and jewels from the Chestermarke bank's vault. The bank's aging owner Gabriel and his nephew Joseph make a curious choice: they refuse to call in the police. Betty Fosdyke arrives to visit her uncle and finds this beyond belief. Her uncle, a man of unimpeachable reputation, simply wouldn't vanish like a common thief. While a Scotland Yard detective officially investigates, Betty does what women of her era were seldom permitted to do: she acts. Teaming with the bank's chief clerk, she launches her own inquiry into the mystery, uncovering secrets the Chestermarkes desperately want buried. J.S. Fletcher constructs his puzzles with the patient intricacy of the Golden Age's best, but Chestermarke Instinct carries an extra charge: its heroine refuses to wait passively for answers. The stakes are personal, the suspects are powerful, and time is running out. What begins as a search for a missing man becomes something darker, a portrait of trust betrayed and the quiet courage required to expose it.