Death of an Airman (British Library Crime Classics)

Mystery crime fiction written in the Golden Age of Murder

"First-rate mystery and an engrossing view into a vanished world." ―Booklist STARRED review

George Furnace, flight instructor at Baston Aero Club, dies instantly when his plane crashes into the English countryside. People who knew him are baffled―Furnace was a first-rate pilot, and the plane was in perfect condition―and the inquest records a verdict of death by misadventure.

An Australian visitor to the aero club, Edwin Marriott, Bishop of Cootamundra, suspects that the true story is more complicated. Could this be a dramatic suicide―or even murder? Together with Inspector Bray of Scotland Yard, the intrepid bishop must uncover a cunning criminal scheme.

CHRISTOPHER ST. JOHN SPRIGG (1907-1937) wrote seven detective novels in the 1930s; first editions are now extremely rare and highly collectable. Sprigg was also a Marxist writer and thinker (his political work was published under the name Christopher Caudwell) and he fought for the Republic in the Spanish Civil War. He was killed in action in Spain several months before his thirtieth birthday.