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‘THE DETECTIVE STORY CLUB is a clearing house for the best detective and mystery stories chosen for you by a select committee of experts. Only the most ingenious crime stories will be published under the THE DETECTIVE STORY CLUB imprint. A special distinguishing stamp appears on the wrapper and title page of every THE DETECTIVE STORY CLUB book—the Man with the Gun. Always look for the Man with the Gun when buying a Crime book.’
Wm. Collins Sons & Co. Ltd., 1929
Now the Man with the Gun is back in this series of COLLINS CRIME CLUB reprints, and with him the chance to experience the classic books that influenced the Golden Age of crime fiction.
Published by COLLINS CRIME CLUB
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by The Crime Club by W. Collins Sons & Co. Ltd 1923
Copyright © Estate of Freeman Wills Crofts 1923
Introduction © Estate of Freeman Wills Crofts 1937
Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1923, 2017
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008159337
Ebook Edition © April 2017 ISBN: 9780008159344
Version: 2017-03-07
Contents
VIII. VANDAM MAKES UP HIS MIND
XIV. INSPECTOR ROSS TAKES CHARGE
XVI. INTRODUCING SIR ANTHONY SWAYNE
XVIII. ENLIGHTENMENT AND MYSTIFICATION
THE WRITING OF A DETECTIVE NOVEL
WE are going, you and I, to write a detective novel, or so I am informed. Let us see, then, how we would set about it and what we would find ourselves up against.
Necessarily we must follow a hypothetical method, for if we asked a hundred detective-novelists how they worked, we should probably get a hundred quite different replies. And we are going to write a detective story, which we are doubtless
