DEATH OF MR. DODSLEY

The fatal shooting of a London bookseller brings detectives from Scotland Yard into competition with a private inquiry agent in this puzzler from 1937.

Making his nightly rounds on Charing Cross Road, Constable Roberts discovers the body of Richard Dodsley, shot to death only a few minutes before. If Roberts hadn’t been held up by the inebriated young man he encountered minutes earlier, would he have caught the murderer red-handed? That puzzle takes a back seat to questions about who could have entered the locked bookshop at 3:00 a.m., who would’ve wanted to kill a man whose passion was rare books, and whether any of the suspects is telling the truth about anything. The early suspicion that falls on Dick Dodsley, the victim’s nephew and heir, is dissipated—or is it intensified?—when a motorcycle accident that same night leaves him first in a coma, then with amnesia. Another coincidence is that Dick’s fiancee, Margery Grafton, has just published Death at the Desk, a whodunit that uncannily predicts certain details of the real-life crime. Anglican priest Ferguson (1871–1952) can’t breathe much life into the suspects’ interminable rounds of questioning by Inspector Mallet, DS Crabb, and his franchise detective, Francis MacNab, a customer of Dodsley’s whom Margery engages on Dick’s behalf. But he punctuates the tale with scenes of delicate comedy ranging from a death-watch session of the House of Commons to an episode in which the coppers attempt to make sense of Richard Dodsley’s record books. And the double-twist ending will awaken even readers who’ve been lulled to sleep by the preceding proceedings.

Golden Age fans with a taste for deferred gratification are in for another unexpected treat.