The Case of the Dead Diplomat

He flung open a drawer and took from it a heavy dagger in a sheath with blood-stains upon it. On the blade were engraved the words, “Blut und Ehre!”

Frank Everett was a rising press attaché at the British Embassy in Paris – until he was found dead in his Rue St. Georges apartment, a knife wound to the throat. Was it a political assassination, a crime passionnel, or possibly even suicide?

The foreign office call in the redoubtable Detective Inspector Richardson, who travels to Paris and must work with the French police in solving the case. He soon discovers that a mysterious coded number is one of the primary clues – if only he can decipher its meaning and unmask Everett’s assassin.

The Case of the Dead Diplomat was originally published in 1935. This new edition, the first in over seventy years, features an introduction by crime novelist Martin Edwards, author of acclaimed genre history The Golden Age of Murder.

“Good entertainment as well as a perfectly sound detective story.” Daily Telegraph

“The story is remarkably well written…highly entertaining reading.” Birmingham Gazette

Sir Basil Home Thomson (1861-1939) was educated at Eton and New College Oxford. After spending a year farming in Iowa, he married in 1889 and worked for the Foreign Service. This included a stint working alongside the Prime Minister of Tonga (according to some accounts, he was the Prime Minister of Tonga) in the 1890s followed by a return to the Civil Service and a period as Governor of Dartmoor Prison. He was Assistant Commissioner to the Metropolitan Police from 1913 to 1919, after which he moved into Intelligence. He was knighted in 1919 and received other honours from Europe and Japan, but his public career came to an end when he was arrested for committing an act of indecency in Hyde Park in 1925 - an incident much debated and disputed. His eight crime novels featuring series character Inspector Richardson were written in the 1930's and received great praise from Dorothy L. Sayers among others. He also wrote biographical and criminological works.