Inspector French and the Starvel Tragedy - Tapa blanda

AN INSPECTOR FRENCH MYSTERY. The burning down of Simon Averill's house, Starvel Hollow, appears at first to be an accident. The house has been reduced to ash, killing three people (including its owner) and incinerating the contents of the safe in which he kept his entire fortune in cash (over thirty thousand pounds). But when one of these notes appears in circulation, surely it cannot be an accident? Once again, Inspector French doggedly pursues the trail across Europe before finally unlocking the mystery when all appears to be lost.

Born in 1879, Freeman Wills Crofts was an Irish engineer and one of the preeminent writers of Golden Age detective fiction. Educated in Belfast, he was apprenticed at eighteen to his uncle, who was chief engineer of the Belfast and Northern Counties Railway. Marrying in 1912, he was to hold various positions in railway engineering before becoming Chief Assistant Engineer, and it was during an illness-induced absence from work that he wrote his first novel, The Cask (1920), which became an international success. Considered a classic of the detective genre, it was followed by a steady production of more than thirty novels, most of which featured the meticulous Inspector French of Scotland Yard. An influential and key pioneer of the genre, Crofts became an early member of the legendary Detection Club in London along with Agatha Christie, Anthony Berkeley and other established mystery writers. He also wrote numerous plays for the BBC, dozens of short stories, a number of true crime works, and a religious book. Known for tight plots and scrupulous attention to detail, his work set new standards in detective fiction plotting. In 1939, the author was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. In retirement from engineering he continued to write and pursued music, carpentry, gardening and travel. He died in 1957.