Pit-Prop Syndicate - Hardcover

Wills Crofts, Freeman

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0008190550 ISBN 13: 9780008190552

Publisher: HARPER COLLINS, 2018

Synopsis

From the Collins Crime Club archive, the third standalone novel by Freeman Wills Crofts, dubbed `The King of Detective Story Writers'. Seymour Merriman's holiday in France comes to an abrupt halt when his motorcycle starts leaking petrol. Following a lorry to find fuel, he discovers that it belongs to an English company making timber pit-props for coal mines back home. His suspicions of illegal activity are aroused when he sees the exact same lorry with a different number plate - and confirmed later with the shocking discovery of a body. What began as amateur detective work ends up as a job for Inspector Willis of Scotland Yard, a job requiring tenacity, ingenuity and guile . . . Freeman Wills Crofts' transition from civil engineer on the Irish railways to world-renowned master of the detective mystery began with The Cask when he was fully 40 years old; but it was his third novel, the baffling The Pit-Prop Syndicate, that was singled out by his editors in 1930 as the first for inclusion in Collins' prestigious new series of reprints `for crime connoisseurs'. This Detective Club classic is introduced by John Curran, author of The Hooded Gunman, and includes the bonus of an exclusive short story by Crofts, `Danger in Shroude Valley'.

About this title

About the Author

Freeman Wills Crofts (1879-1957), the son of an army doctor who died before he was born, was raised in Northern Ireland and became a civil engineer on the Irish railways. His first book, The Cask, was published in the summer of 1920, immediately establishing him as a new master of detective fiction. Dubbed `The King of Detective Story Writers', he was continually praised for his flawless plotting, with Raymond Chandler describing him as `the soundest builder of them all'. Crofts was a founder member of the Detection Club and elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 1939.

Review

`Undeniably the greatest of detective story writers.' - Outlook `This early story by Freeman Wills Crofts has lost nothing in the passage of time: indeed, it seems almost better than ever . . . One of the classics of modern crime fiction.' - New York Times

About this edition

• Publisher: HARPER COLLINS
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 0008190550
• ISBN 13: 9780008190552
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 320