The Templeton Case

On a quiet evening in the seaside village of Marsh Quay, Reginald Templeton steps off his yacht for what should be an unremarkable visit across the estuary. By morning, he is dead, found by his own crewman in the mud near the water's edge. Detective-Sergeant Colson, a determined country policeman, takes on the case without calling in Scotland Yard, and that is precisely what makes this 1924 puzzle so satisfying. The victim moved in elevated circles: a local gentleman, a landlady with secrets, fellow yachtsmen with convenient alibis. Yet someone in this small community killed him, and Colson must untangle a web of conflicting testimony and buried motives before the killer vanishes into the mist. Whitechurch, writing at the very dawn of the Golden Age, delivers misdirection that genuinely surprises and clues that reward careful attention. The solution arrives not through dramatic confrontation but through quiet, methodical deduction, the quiet pleasure of watching a clever man think.