Hermione Taylor is in love with Richard Feiling, but is in a relationship with the moneylender and financial adviser John Throgmorton. But when Feiling returns from the continent with a scheme for increasing a £5000 investment to £50000 overnight, the three fall into a scheme to make their fortunes. But where to get the £5000 from? Enter Veronica Haslet.
Veronica is the matron of St Julian Preparatory School who has just won the French lottery. She heads to London to seek investment advice from Throgmorton… and it’s the last thing that she’ll ever do. But having apparently got away with murder, can Throgmorton and co stay ahead of the long arm of the law? Enter Inspector Martin…
I’m not a fan of the idea of the inverted mystery – Columbo is the exception, but that’s mostly down to the wonderful Peter Falk – and, after 821 reviews (yes, I count them), this is the first one for the blog. I figured it was about time.
Francis Beeding has had a mixed reception on the blog. Death Walks In Eastrepps is outstanding – seriously, go and read it – but The Four Armourers… was not impressive. Oh, and cover fans, that’s not the only Beeding book with the “Sit Up With Beeding” cover style – I spotted an overly expensive copy of another title a while ago.
This, however, is an absolute cracker. Even without the impressive sting in the tale (please don’t hint at that in the comments), this is a hugely enjoyable tale, and I’m going to have to reconsider my reticence at the genre. I’m going to say no more for fear of spoilers, but there are cheap UK reprints of this one out there. Seriously, if you haven’t read this, go and get a copy. Highly Recommended.
In Search of the Classic Mystery Novel 
I read the Six Proud Walkers many years ago and hoped to find more from this author. I liked his sense of humor.
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Darn it! Couldn’t resist – just downloaded it as an ebook, which led to another in the same series… Aaarggh!
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Which other one?
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Trial and Error by Anthony Berkeley
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Glad you loved this one. Brilliant sting as you say, though this is definitely a hard book to talk about without spoilers.
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Thanks for the review. I’m not fond of inverted mysteries too, but I’ve heard great things about this one… 😀
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Not read this one but I usually like Beeding a lot (EASTREPPS is a classic, no question). Will get, thanks chum 🙂
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What other Beeding have you read?
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Now you’re asking, it was decades ago. definitely enjoyed HOUSE OF DR EDWARDES which became the Hitchcock movie SPELLBOUND (very loosely) but should re-read that. The rest were in Italian in the early 1980s … Sorry, not much help today!
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