Mr Crook Murder Mystery
43 total works
Henry's vocation is being a husband. First he woos. Then he weds. Then he kills...
Classic crime from one of the greats of the Detection Club
When he falls in love with orphan Sarah, Henry takes her to a lonely cottage and her initial happiness at being with him soon gives way to some uncomfortable suspicions. But will anyone reach the isolated spot before Henry deems her a little too inquisitive for her own good?
May Forbes came four nights a week to feed the wild cats on Broomstick Common. That was how she happened to glimpse a masked man with a spade - and she's now in fear for her life.
Classic crime from one of the greats of the Detection Club
May leaves the common and ends up at the Mettlesome Horse, where irascible lawyer, Arthur Crook, is drinking at the bar. So when the body of eighteen-year-old Linda Myers is found buried on the Common, Crook discovers a number of people who might want the girl dead.
Then May Forbes leaves for work one lunchtime and does not reappear . . .
She lost her memory - now her life is at risk.
Classic crime from one of the greats of the Detection Club
When lawyer-detective Arthur Crook bumped into a woman called Barbara on the parade at Beachampton it became apparent she had no idea who she was. She had been closely involved in the sudden deaths of two rich old ladies but something had instinctively prevented her from going to the police.
Now Barbara finds herself under grave suspicion and fighting for her life. But will Arthur Crook be able to untangle the mystery?
'No author is more skilled at making a good story seem brilliant' Sunday Express
If you ever need my help, I'll be there. But by the time he arrived, she had already disappeared...
Classic crime from one of the greats of the Detection Club
Arthur Crook and Miss Pinnegar meet by accident and take to each other on sight, parting with mutual appreciation and an invitation by the detective to call on him professionally should she ever need help - unlikely as that may be.
But when Miss Pinnegar receives a visit, it threatens to shake her life to the very foundations. She sends Crook an SOS and he comes at the double, but by then Miss Pinnegar has already disappeared . . .
An ordinary day - which turns to blackmail and murder.
Classic crime from one of the greats of the Detection Club
What seemed like an ordinary phone call in the middle of the afternoon suddenly plunges its recipient, Simon Crete, into a plot of blackmail and murder.
'Tell him it's no use. I haven't got it,' the mystery woman's voice cried desperately down the line. But who was she? And why was she ringing a man whom she had never seen?
The victims were predictable - the murderer was not...
Classic crime from one of the greats of the Detection Club
Sour, selfish and worth several millions, Mrs French was just the kind of woman you'd expect to be murdered. And so, in due course, she was.
Mrs Hoggett was the next to die - another murder predicted by all who, unfortunately, knew her well. Since there was no shortage of suspects, it was small wonder the killer eluded the law. And then a lovely young woman came forth with a story of bigamy and blackmail so bizarre it had to be true. All that was needed for proof was yet another corpse...
'Clever' New York Herald Tribune
A mission to help refugees - but someone has murder in mind...
Classic crime from one of the greats of the Detection Club
It is at a local watering hole, the Duck and Daisy, that lawyer-detective Arthur Crook happens upon a party of men and women calling themselves the Peace Brigadiers. Their mission is to aid refugees from Europe.
But it isn't long before Crook suspects one of them is using the premises for criminal ends. And when murder strikes Crook becomes entangled in a treacherous plot . . .
An ordinary couple - but wherever they go, death follows...
Classic crime from one of the greats of the Detection Club
Mr Cobb is the third elderly invalid to die conveniently, if unexpectedly, in the house of Fred and Bessie Meadows. Yet who could suspect this responsible, honest couple? Nothing is too much trouble, yet wherever they go, death goes too. But their third crime involves them with Arthur Crook, and that's when their luck turns.
Fans of the lawyer-sleuth know that his arrival on the scene brings action, and that every sort of cunning will be employed to ensure the innocent are kept safe and the guilty ... trapped.
'No author is more skilled at making a good story seem brilliant' Sunday Express
A missing wife, a husband suspected - and only the incorrigible private investigator can save them both.
Classic crime from one of the greats of the Detection Club
On the day that Emily Tate vanished, Inspector Marston met her husband, Stephen Tate, on the tow-path of the River Pyle. The unassuming Stephen was on the brink of a nightmare episode that was to make his unhappy marriage, his clandestine love affair and his disappointed hopes seem positively joyous by comparison.
The determination of the girl he loved was the only thing that could save him from the web of circumstances in which he was enmeshed. She sent for Detective Arthur Crook.
A crime that isn't reported; a mother who's threatened...
Classic crime from one of the greats of the Detection Club
Out walking in the snow with her young son, Mike, Sara Drew is the only witness to a particularly unpleasant car accident in which an elderly lady and her dog are killed. Nervous of going to the scene of the accident with a child, she reluctantly goes home. There she meets one of the drivers, and is appalled that he has no intention of reporting the incident. And he also threatens to hurt her son if she goes to the police.
But when Mike is kidnapped she contacts Detective Arthur Crook, who takes over the case and counters the wiles of desperate criminals . . .
Beautiful, amoral and ruthless - but was she a killer?
Classic crime from one of the greats of the Detection Club
Ruth Garside was framed for three killings. But was she really guilty?
As a girl, Ruth was accused of a dreadful crime; as a wife she was suspected of her husband's death; as a widow she was accused of her employer's murder.
'I can prove her innocence,' cried Thomas Fogg KC. 'I can prove my own innocence,' said Ruth. 'She's my client so she can't be guilty, and by heck, I'll prove it if it means the skies falling,' declared Arthur Crook. Well - does he? And is he justified?
Murder on the train - and the killer is looking for the next victim...
Classic crime from one of the greats of the Detection Club
On a fast train to London, Arthur Crook meets trouble with a capital T. During the journey one passenger disappears and is subsequently found dead beside the line. The killer has killed before and is preparing to kill again.
Soon, a girl in desperate circumstances finds herself at the hands of a criminal organisation - will Crook now step in as her salvation in this life-and-death chase?
Solange Peters 'died' - and so did the scandal and suspicion that haunted her. So now she has the chance for a new life . . .
Classic crime from one of the greats of the Detection Club
A bizarre accident gave Solange the chance to assume a new identity - and, as Julie Taylor, she set out to do just that, as companion to wealthy, neurotic Bianca Duncan. But soon she is plunged into a distorted and terrifying existence. A menace to Bianca's life is growing daily and a strange young man could expose Julie's masquerade. Suddenly the new identity seems far from safe, as Julie is forced to fight for her own life.
An escaped convict, a mysterious deserted house, and murder in the Lake District..
Classic crime from one of the greats of the Detection Club
The shades of night were falling fast when Arthur Crook drove the old Superb over the Lakeland Fells and into the valley, to stop at a mysterious house where, though a light burned in an upper window, no one answered the bell.
Here opens a double murder mystery in which Crook acts in the defence of a young prisoner on the run, whose guilt appears evident.
'The usual gusto, racy prose, good plotting and up-to-the-minute social observation' Sunday Times
A blackmailer - murdered. And the suspect in fear for her life...
Classic crime from one of the greats of the Detection Club
Margaret Ross knew she had to pay off the blackmailer, Samson, or else her beloved son would go to jail for forgery.
The next night she rang the bell at Samson's sinister house on Margate Street. There was no answer. Slowly she entered the house and went up the stairs. Samson was waiting at his desk - murdered. She found the incriminating letters and the cheque and escaped with them. But she had been seen.
The dangers gather like wasps around Margaret and it takes all of Detective Arthur Crook's genius to get to her in time.
'Amusing and zestful, with an unexpected and exciting climax' Daily Telegraph
Assisted suicide - or murder...?
Classic crime from one of the greats of the Detection Club
Even Hatty Savage had to admit, at the inquest, that it had been foolish of her, when Richard Sheridan had threatened suicide, to hand him her sleeping tablets. So when a girl who had apparently been trying to blackmail her also came to an abrupt end, it was scarcely surprising that Hatty found herself in custody.
Fortunately, she'd had the sense to marry local solicitor Philip Cobb, and, the moment Hatty is locked up he rushes to enlist the help of Detective Arthur Crook. When he becomes the prime suspect, it's a decision Cobb could live to regret ...
'No author is more skilled at making a good story seem brilliant' Sunday Express
When an accident begins to look like murder...
Classic crime from one of the greats of the Detection Club
On a quiet country station, Detective Arthur Crook, waiting for the train to London, witnessed a near-fatal accident. Despite the arm of her companion, Miss Imogen Garland slipped and almost fell under the train. No harm was done, and Arthur Crook might not have thought anything more about it had not a newspaper item a few weeks later caught his eye. Miss Garland had once again been involved in an accident, this time fatal. Only it was not Miss Garland who had died . . .
He knows their darkest secrets - but they are even more ruthless than him, with murder in mind...
Classic crime from one of the greats of the Detection Club
Teddy Lane has sunk into the sordid depths of blackmail and thinks he is on to a good thing. He knows the dark secrets of four people who have everything to lose if they are exposed - a young actress, a criminal lawyer, a scientist, and an elderly woman with a doctor son.
What he hasn't bargained for is that two people are more ruthless than him. And they will not let him get away with it, even if it means murder - his murder.
After years of caring for her often impossible mother, Alice is finally free. But an unexpected legacy gives her more than she bargained for...
Classic crime from one of the greats of the Detection Club
When Alice Hunter's mother dies, after grimly clinging on for eighty-odd years, it is enough for genteel Alice just to be free. But she soon becomes lonely, having few points of contact with the people in the cheap boarding houses which are all she can afford. Then comes news of a legacy, and Alice's soul rises as she travels to the family's lawyers in Bath.
Her new life is not what she expects, however, and she is lost in a fog of human misunderstanding, hatred and deceit. A nice cup of tea, stirred by detective Arthur Crook, is what she will need to put things right . . .
In a small English town, family conflict can be murder...
Classic crime from one of the greats of the Detection Club
When spinster Emily Foss, who ran the haberdashery, is found bludgeoned to death, the silver pencil that had surely been in her purse that night is found in brash young Lennie Hunter's possession, and it is he who is to be hanged for the crime.
To clear his name, Hunter's fiancée brings in Detective Arthur Crook. Soon Crook discovers Emily was not on good terms with her nephew, his wife, or many others in the small English town where she lived. Faced with a maze of hidden motives, Crook must contrive against the clock to trap the real murderer.
'No author is more skilled at making a good story seem brilliant' Sunday Express