The Crow's Inn Tragedy

In the dignified law chambers of Crow's Inn Square, solicitor Luke Bechcombe is found strangled in his own office, surrounded by the very instruments that could have saved him: a hand-bell, a speaking-tube, a telephone. Yet he never called for help. He recognized his killer and felt no fear. When Inspector Furnival begins his investigation, he finds a solicitor's practice thick with secrets, a clergyman begging for help with his damaged war-hero son, and a secretary whose quiet competence masks something far more complex. What unfolds is a meticulously plotted puzzle of the kind that made the 1920s the golden age of mystery: a tangled web of relationships, a gang trafficking in priceless gems, and clues laid with devilish precision for the attentive reader. Haynes, writing at the height of her powers, constructs a locked-room problem wrapped in human tragedy, where the question is not merely whodunit but why the victim made no move to save himself. This edition marks the first time in over eighty years the book has been in print, offering modern readers a chance to discover one of the forgotten masters of the form.