The Robthorne Mystery
The Robthorne Mystery is a 1934 detective novel by John Rhode, the pen name of the British writer Cecil Street.[1] It is the seventeenth in his long-running series of novels featuring Lancelot Priestley, a Golden Age armchair detective. It was published in the United States the same year by Dodd Mead.[2]
 First Edition (UK) | |
| Author | John Rhode |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Series | Lancelot Priestley |
| Genre | Detective |
| Publisher | Collins Crime Club (UK) Dodd Mead (US) |
Publication date | 1934 |
| Media type | |
| Preceded by | The Venner Crime |
| Followed by | Poison for One |
Reviewing the book for The Sunday Times Dorothy L. Sayers wrote "One always embarks on a John Rhode book with a great feeling of security. One knows that there will be a sound plot, a well-knit process of reasoning, and a solidly satisfying solution with no loose ends or careless errors of fact." Isaac Anderson in The New York Times remarked that "no one who has ever read a Dr. Priestley story will be surprised to learn that this is a genuinely baffling crime puzzle of the first quality".
Synopsis
Warwick Robthorne is found dead on Guy Fawkes Night in the greenhouse of his brother Maurice's large country home. Apparently a victim of suicide. This coincides with a police operation in London led by Inspector Hanslet against a gang of drug smugglers. It falls to the gifted criminologist to tie all the evidence together between the two cases.
References
- Evans p.247
- Reilly p.1257
Bibliography
- Evans, Curtis. Masters of the "Humdrum" Mystery: Cecil John Charles Street, Freeman Wills Crofts, Alfred Walter Stewart and the British Detective Novel, 1920-1961. McFarland, 2014.
- Herbert, Rosemary. Whodunit?: A Who's Who in Crime & Mystery Writing. Oxford University Press, 2003.
- Reilly, John M. Twentieth Century Crime & Mystery Writers. Springer, 2015.