Books with title The Charing Cross Mystery

J. S. Fletcher's The Charing Cross Mystery starts dramatically. Hetherwick, a young barrister, witnesses the sudden death of one of two fellow passengers on the London Underground between St. James's Park and Charing Cross. The dead man’s companion disappears without trace and foul play is suspected. Yes, it’s a mystery and a story of detection. But in the middle of the book the main mysteries are solved and the rest is more thriller stuff with chasing the culprits. Detection work is done by Hetherwick, the barrister who witnessed the crime, he "had leisure on his hands; also, he was well off in this world's goods, and much more con­cerned with the psychology of his profession than with a desire to earn money by its practice." The police investigation is led by Matherfield, who later joins forces with Hetherwick. The barrister’s clerk helps and does a bit of detection on his own. Some other characters interfere and the plot gets confused. There are some old fashioned devices, too, like identical twins or strange poison. The style is dry and the novel lacks care and atmosphere. For instance, though involved in a romance with the daughter of the murdered man, we never learn the Christian name of his amateur detective. And why does the author use similar sounding names for the two protagonists, Hetherwick and Matherfield? Fletcher may be a bit dull, but if the reader is interested in more than a good plot well told, for instance in setting, in this case London and the industrial North, or in the question how a typical mystery writer of the 1890s adapts to the challenge of Doyle and the beginning of the Golden Age, he will find enough to hold his attention.

Charing Cross Mystery is a thrilling detective novel, involving murder, poison, and mayhem. Hetherwick, a budding barrister, witnesses the sudden, and untimely death of a passenger on the London Underground between St. James Park, and Charing Cross. The only other passenger flees, leaving Hetherwick to suspect foul play. He, along with the police, and a beautiful young woman, will stop at nothing until the case is solved.

CLASSIC DETECTIVE FICTION REDISCOVERED Hetherwick, a young barrister, is heading home late one night when two men enter his train compartment. He listens, intrigued, to their conversation about a beautiful and mysterious – but un-named – woman. When one of the men drops dead, for no apparent reason, as the train pulls into Charing Cross station, Hetherwick is thrown headlong into a disturbing and intriguing mystery that keeps him – and the police – guessing right to the end. “He stared wildly around him: Hetherwick caught the flash of his eye as it swept the compartment, and never forgot the look of frightened amazement that he saw in it; it was as if the man had been caught, with lightning-like swiftness, face to face with some awful thing ...” This, the first in our new series, is an opportunity to rediscover a great, early 20th Century detective story from a well-respected author writing at the height of his powers. Set largely in the capital, this thrilling tale pulls the reader deep into 1920s London, carrying them through countless familiar place names and locations in the hunt for the perpetrator of, and reason for, this heinous crime. An amateur sleuth classic! LONDON BOUND – A series of classic crime novels, largely from the Golden Age of detective fiction, faithfully transcribed, re-set and reprinted by Oleander under the series name London Bound - owing, unsurprisingly, to their all being set in the nation's capital. The Series Editor, Richard Reynolds, is current Chair of the CWA Gold Dagger judging panel and crime specialist at the world-famous Heffers Bookshop in Cambridge. Make sure you check out the next two in the series: The Doctor of Pimlico Search 978-1909349735 and the long-sought after Fatality in Fleet Street Search 978-1909349759 Beautifully produced in a completely re-set edition. A joy to read and to own.